


Once A Lord Of Narnia

by Britpacker



Series: A Lord Of Narnia [1]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Action/Adventure, Aftermath of Violence, Angst, Battle Scenes, Captivity, Carousing, Coming of Age, Corporal Punishment, Defiance, Did I mention the original characters?, Escape, Exile, Friendship, Gen, Goodbyes, Growing Up, Homecoming, Humor, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Loss, Minor characters have stories too!, Naval Discipline, News From Home, Promotion, Rescue, Reunions, Romance, Sea Battles, Seafaring, Shipwreck, Shore Leave, War, War Crimes, Witnessing A Massacre, court life, meddling relatives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-04-05 05:48:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 68
Words: 142,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14037516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Britpacker/pseuds/Britpacker
Summary: Prince Caspian wasn't the only child whose life was turned upside-down by the usurpation of his father's crown. There's a story behind the appearance of a Narnian nobleman able to command a ship to the very Edge of the World...





	1. Prologue: Etinsmere's Heir

**Author's Note:**

> I rediscovered this fic, which I started working on a very long time ago, on an old USB recently and it's kick-started my imagination. I should state outright - the Drinian and Caspian concerned are the ones I envisaged from the books, which I loved as a young child and still love now. They're about as far away from the film version as it's possible to get!
> 
> Secondary characters are often the ones to fire my imagination as Drinian did to provoke this story (I blame C.S. Lewis for making even his minor figures so real). I started posting it years ago on fanfiction.net (under another pen name - LizzieBoleyn) before "losing" the USB. Several chapters are inspired by elements of other fics, (can't find the backup for those, either - useless!) also posted over there.

The sound of his pounding footfalls deadened by a carpet of sweet, cool moss, he broke cover close to the mellow pinkish bulk of the house, heart hammering more with exhilaration than the exertion of a mile’s run through thick woods on a glorious day. Caspian was going to be wild with envy when he heard!

His pace slowed as he crossed the impressive façade of the manor and he had to duck beneath each mullion window, every tiny pane of glass glinting in the midsummer sun. His feet flexing to loosen their mud-encrusted leather boots Drinian, heir to the great lordship of Etinsmere, paused at the main door to remove them, picking his way across the chilly stone flags of the entrance hall with care until he could hop onto the first step of the oak main stair, ears pricked for the agitated quack of the housekeeper, old Ellena, demanding to know what had kept him from home beyond teatime. _What a shriek she would loose if I told her!_

A shiver of movement at the edge of his vision stopped him dead, one hand curved around the worn carved balustrade down which he was apt to slide. Someone in the Great State Parlour? The King was not in the North, was he?

“My Lord, you fret for naught.” The boy relaxed, for when Mamma spoke in that merry, lilting way, just on the edge of laughter, all must be well with the world. “Miraz is a poltroon! Why, even the market women laugh at his pretensions!”

“And so they may Elizabetha, but a King should be more circumspect.” The gravity in his father’s low voice made the eavesdropper’s innards tighten. Papa was sometimes stern; occasionally rather frightening. Never in his eight years, however, had Drinian heard him so obviously troubled. “Of course the Prince is a knave and his spouse a termagant, but Caspian’s folly is to make public his contempt for them - aye, and the party they build against him.”

“You mean Glozelle and Sopespian, I suppose.” A word of His Majesty’s clicked into Drinian’s head at the clipped coldness his mother gave the two names. _Shrewish_. It had been heard often at the Palace when the poor Queen had suffered her last illness. “Tirian, no person of honour – no person of sense – would associate with those villains.”

“Miraz does, my dear. By his partisanship they have profited, and by his brother’s indiscretion others have been drawn to their side. Caspian has great plans, but they must be carried out with tact.”

“Our master barely knows the meaning of the word!” His mother’s chortle fortunately overlaid Drinian’s snigger as her slender shadow swayed to merge with the burlier silhouette of her husband stretching across the hall. “But while he may not be sensitive, neither is Caspian a fool. He will manage Miraz. Did he not declare as much himself?”

“Aye and loudly, as if he didn’t know the Palace filled with his brother’s spies.” His wife’s optimism did not appear to be cheering the Lord Tirian. Drinian worried at his bottom lip, not understanding his father’s alarm but wholeheartedly sharing it. “I have begged him be cautious; reminded him even the greatest of fools can stumble to success, but no. He sees Miraz still as the irritating infant of their nursery, weeping in his nurse’s lap for attention he could earn no other way.”

“And his foot-stamping now is but a symptom of the same childish spite.” Her voice was the soothing one of scraped knees and wrongly added sums, but having passed his eighth birthday fully half a year before Drinian was proud to be beyond infant consolation. He was a Narnian lord like his sire. It was his duty to ponder on the affairs of the great. Papa would not fret without reason. And Prince Miraz, his best friend’s uncle, was a horrid old prune.

Pleased with his own wit the boy swung lazily off the balustrade, which gave a sharp and ominous creak. “Who’s there?”

Several words he was not supposed to comprehend burst through Drinian’s mind. “’Tis only I, Papa,” he called meekly, smoothing down his wind-tossed hair before stepping into plain view of the parlour door. Both parents, the tall father towering over the dainty mother, beamed as much with relief as pride at the sight of their handsome son. “I’m sorry to be so late, Mamma,” he continued, adopting his most humble pose. “Was Master Hofian _very_ cross? And Irina?”

“Your dancing master is paid whether you deign to attend his lesson or no: as for your nurse, you know if she is, she shan't remain so.” The Lady Elizabetha ruffled her son’s raven locks playfully, her panic dissolved as her husband’s did not. “Run upstairs before your sister can finish your scones as well as her own!”

“A moment, lad.” Tirian of Etinsmere caught his pointed chin in a callused palm, forcing the boy’s wide dark eyes to hold his own piercing stare. “Where have you been?”

“About in the woods, Sir.” Innocence seldom persuaded Papa, but Drinian was rash enough to keep trying. The Lord Tirian grunted.

“I’ll detain the lad a moment, Elizabetha. Assure his nurse he’s come to no harm, unless I discover aught more worthy of a whipping than his missing Master Hofian’s lesson again,” he advised his wife, accompanying the threat with a wink that proved its hollowness. With a gentleness unlooked for in so big a man he urged his son back into the grandest and chilliest chamber of the house. 

“You heard matters spoken of which it were best to remain ignorant, Drinian,” he stated, heedlessly fingering the richness of leather on the large chair against which he leaned. “How long were you idling there?”

“Mamma was calling His Highness a fool, Sir.” With a tilt of the head did he declare his agreement, the small defiance winning a reluctant twitch of his father’s mouth. 

“Fools can say much without the punishment of other men.”

“Like Master Wullens?”

The Lord Tirian chuckled massively. “Aye, like His Majesty's jester; or his brother! You will say naught to anyone – least of all your friend the Prince – of what you have heard.”

“Yes, Father.” Which did not mean it would be forgotten. “The King’s brother…”

The corners of Tirian’s full lips turned ominously downward. “Leave Prince Miraz and his insolence to your elders. Whatever his designs on his brother’s crown…”

At the cocking of his firstborn’s head and the quizzical raising of one brow the Lord of Etinsmere checked himself, glaring as if his indiscretion was Drinian’s. “The business of the Crown is not yours, lad! Which is as well! Were you to give graver matters the same attention you do your dancing… it has not passed unremarked that _three times_ you have been lost in the forest when Master Hofian has ridden leagues from the Palace to school you.”

“But Sir….” On this, Drinian reckoned, the ground was steady beneath him, knowing Papa liked the courtly arts no better than he. Were Mamma not so insistent, additional studies in seamanship would replace the weekly drudge of dance and music. “I _meant_ to be back in good time, truly I did, but I was distracted.”

All thought of royal brothers at odds flew from his head as he remembered precisely what had pushed Mamma’s injunction to be home in good time from his mind. “I saw one, Father! A Faun! Oh, and it was just as they are in picture books, with the hairy legs of a goat and the body of a man, bearded and with horns bursting from the top of his head! They still live, Papa, just as Caspian’s nurse and Irina say, and I followed its funny little footprints down toward the shore and right into the Black Woods!”

“Enough of this tomfoolery!” The thick sandstone of the manor walls reverberated with the Master’s roar and the shrill stream of excited babble stopped on Drinian’s dry lips. “Do you mean to frighten the women from their wits with this raving? Fauns, indeed! Shame on a lad of your years believing such fairy tales!”

“But Father, I saw it! Clear as day, and not thirty yards away! I’ll wager there are dozens – hundreds of them living in the woods, knowing no man dare go near the old castle on the island!”

Too late, as his father’s ruddy complexion turned to puce, did he recall his supposed ignorance of that tumbledown structure just beyond reach of a strong swimmer (and well beyond the bounds of his mother’s indulgence, were she to hear of him straying so far into the Haunted Forest). Overgrown with apple trees, its walls slowly crumbling, the ruined fortress had intrigued and alarmed Drinian in equal measure since he had chanced upon it three months before. “I mean – why, every fool knows it exists, Sir! Why else would there be an ancient proclamation forbidding any heir of Telmar to venture close to the place?”

“Say one word o’ this nonsense to His Highness Caspian at your peril, boy - unless you’d care to discover a punishment that makes the lash a pleasure!” Every fine hair at the back of his neck prickled. When Tirian, Lord of Etinsmere, Admiral of the Fleet and Chief of Counsel to the King, dropped his deep bass bellow to this low, dangerous rasp, one knew one stood in imminent peril. “And even _hint_ to your mother that you lurk in the depths of those woods, you’ll find yourself confined to the nursery for the rest of your days! Am I understood?”

“Yes, Father.” Hard to remember that scarce ten minutes before he had been in such a frenzy of delicious excitement. “And I have said naught to Casp – the Prince’s Highness, I mean – of the place.”

“I fancy that loose-mouthed old fool of a woman has told too many nursery tales.” His son's contrition appeared sincere, and Tirian no more than his wife could long be angry with so promising a venturesome heir. “Now, hurry to make peace with milady your nurse - and compose an apology to soothe Master Hofian’s displeasure! And be warned – should you fail to remember your next appointment with him, I am under stern instruction that all your studies in seamanship are to cease.”

Drinian’s head dropped. No son of Etinsmere would be seen with dampness filling his eyes! “I _am_ sorry, Father,” he mumbled to the formless bulk of the man reflected in the high polish Ellena kept on the Great Chamber’s wooden floor. “I shall pay more heed to time in future.”

“Promise no more than you can be certain to give and no man will have cause to condemn you.” Amused (if not wholly persuaded) Tirian gave an affectionate clout to the shoulder that sent the boy staggering toward the door. “And promise me on your honour as an Etinsmere you’ll say naught of fauns or vexatious princes to your playmates!”

Instinct made him straighten to attention, dark head proudly raised. “On my honour, Sir,” Drinian pledged. Tirian’s sternness melted.

“The word of an Etinsmere suffices for me,” he murmured, giving a small nod by way of more formal dismissal. “Run away now! And send Mistress Ellena to me. I'd have arrangements made for your Mamma’s likely absence in days to come. What, lad? Do you forget, your grandmother Greenglade lies dangerously sick? Fauns in the woods, indeed! For shame, that Etinsmere’s son should babble such nonsense!”

Drinian fled as he was bidden, only the thought of his crippled grandmother’s failing health keeping the jubilant grin from his face. They did exist: and if there were Fauns in Narnia still, then there would be Dwarves too, and beasts that spoke like men. 

“Pah!” he gurgled, halted before the Nursery door to compose himself before facing his infant sister. “And they'd speak more sense than Caspian’s addle-pate Uncle Miraz, too! Katharina Etinsmere! Have you finished all the scones? You’ll end with a belly like the Hobbled Hermit of Hamdon Hill, and _then_ what will Mother say?”


	2. One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tensions are high in the palace of the Telmarine King. Two boys' games are about to send them even higher...

Crooning to his trembling prize Drinian pressed back into a curtained alcove in the Privy Apartments of the Royal Palace, stealthy as a practised cat-burglar. From the turn in the passageway ahead of him, a hand waved. _All clear!_

His grasp of the frightened mouse as gentle as their situation would allow he scampered to join his associate in inching along, making a fine series of tapestries depicting the triumphs of the Conqueror shiver. They passed several large gilded doors with barely a glance, pausing only when they reached the one nearest their goal to listen, straining for the sound of their quarry’s wheezy breathing.

Footsteps on the other side of the wall caused them to freeze. The agitated quacking of their impatient nemesis, abusing her maid’s tardiness with the morning's hot water, awoke their petrified limbs and sent them haring on, almost running into the final door of the apartments in their haste. Hesitant as if he believed she might appear in two places at once the smaller boy, fair as his companion was dark, peered into the large, silent room.

“Clear!” he hissed as he entered, the word sliding back through the narrow gap he left behind. “I’ll stand watch.”

“And be sure you do this time!” Drinian muttered, scurrying through a fine mist of heavily sprayed musk scent to drop onto his knees before a low shelf stacked with jewelled boxes. “Which one?”

“The rose satin: I heard her shouting about them to her maid.” Caspian, son of Caspian, six-year-old heir to Narnia, rolled his big blue eyes. “Aunt must _bellow_ , even when she means to tell one a secret,” he added tiredly. 

As he knelt before the huge array of shoe boxes, nose wrinkled against the fragranced paper he knew would be wrapped around the objects inside, Drinian saw his father’s troubled face swim before his mind’s eye. _That may be as well for us all_ , he thought, releasing the mouse to burrow deep between the Lady Prunaprismia’s chosen footwear of the day. 

“Hurry, Drinian! Even Aunt’s primping can’t last much longer!” The younger boy was hopping agitatedly, casting a glance now to his friend, then to the deserted corridor of Prince Miraz’s Apartments. Leaving the lid ajar the elder sprang up, dashing back toward his friend. “Run!”

The petulance of the lady could be clearly made out from the robing room that adjoined her bedchamber, rebuking her harassed servant in terms Lord Tirian swore were fit only for mariners. Giggling, the two boys stumbled into a convenient housemaids’ cupboard at the end of the apartments, huddling back against musty, rough-handled brooms. “How long, do you imagine?” muttered Caspian, too old at six to confide a terror of the dark, yet too young to keep the tremor from his question. Drinian gave him a good-natured shove.

“Half of no time! We could hide in the woods, if you wish?”

A foolish suggestion he reflected as Caspian squeaked, the sound muffled against a quickly-raised palm. However he loved the tales of Old Narnia his nurse told so well, Prince Caspian was as frightened of the spirits that were said to lurk in the woodland as any washerwoman’s daughter. _Were he to see a real Faun he'd most likely faint!_

Still, as no hue and cry was raised beyond their hiding place and the dust stirred by every tiny movement began to tickle his nose, Drinian silently acknowledged his own dislike of close confinement, whether he could see half a yard ahead or no. Aware of Caspian fidgeting nervously, he stretched out a reassuring arm to the younger boy. “How long does it take her to dress?”

“Longer than one would imagine, seeing the result.”

The laconic response was sufficiently unexpected to provoke a strangled hoot. “Did His Majesty say that?”

The air was stirred anew by Caspian’s vigorous nodding. And then it happened.

The tranquillity of the royal apartments was shattered by an ear-splitting shriek. “Miraz!”

Footsteps pounded through the thickest of Beaversdam carpets. Voices echoed from one end of the vast building to the other: princes, nobles, chamberlains and maidservants came scurrying, and all the while a barely comprehensible stream of feminine fright and outrage issued forth from the Lady Prunaprismia’s apartments. 

“A mouse! Husband, a _mouse_ in my shoe! Ariane, don’t _touch_ it you stupid child, your fingers must lace my petticoats yet! Husband – Sire – my Lord Tirian – a mouse! Ugh, take it away, hateful, _horrid_ little thing, where is it gone? I cannot bear it! Oh!”

“Your Grace will doubtless find the animal far more afraid of you than you can be of it.” Drinian bit down hard on his bottom lip. Papa was on the verge of laughing! “Let it run, Your Majesty, this bellowing will frighten the poor creature half way to the Pire Pass!”

“In my shoe – how in the name of the Conqueror did the vile creature get into my best satin slippers without assistance? Your Highness must find those - those _boys_ and whip them!”

“Sister.” Caspian IX, Drinian noted, was not laughing. He could imagine the round, ruddy face creasing into a scowl Mamma claimed would frighten the horses, the narrow lips pulled so tight they became invisible. “Do you accuse Our son of misconduct?”

“Say more likely _our sons_ , Sire.” The Lord Tirian sounded bored: a signal, his heir knew only too well, of rising irritation. “Mice do not, by chance, inhabit large buildings of their own will? Their presence must surely be the work of human hands.”

“Oh, indeed.” The floorboards close to their hiding place creaked ominously. Drinian felt disturbance in the air again as Caspian’s hand flew up to stifle a squeal. “You! Maid! Has His Highness, or my young Lord of Etinsmere, been about the corridors? Speak, girl, unlike some of this House _We_ do not beat our servants for answering Us boldly.”

“Only our sons,” Caspian mouthed, standing on his toes to pass the words into the taller boy’s ear. 

“Been all this morning with my mistress, Your Majesty. I b’aint seen nobody. Ow!”

“Common wretch, speak as I taught before your betters!” The Prince’s wife proved her nephew’s earlier truth with a violent stage whisper.

“Brother.” All condescension now, the elder Caspian’s contempt tasted bitter on the tongues of his hearers. “You will remind your wife, of course, of the duty we of rank bear to show _courtesy_ to our inferiors? You may go…?”

“Ariane, Your Majesty. Thank ‘ee, Sire.” 

Before the squeak of the girl’s cork-soled shoes could fade away another voice, thin and querulous, had risen to join the affray. “And will you leave the wretches unpunished, Caspian? Prunaprismia is of a delicate disposition, easily distressed by trifles…”

“Aye, so we see,” grunted the King. 

“Delicate as a blasted hurricane,” the Lord Tirian muttered, unfortunately close to the broom cupboard. Drinian stuffed both fists to his mouth and bit down hard. 

“What proofs, Prince Miraz, save the shrill accusation of an hysterical woman, have you of Our heir’s involvement in this... mischance?” If there was emphasis attached to a pair of soft-spoken words, the boys in the darkness failed to detect it. “You there, usher! What’s your name?”

“Cofian, Your Majesty.”

Against his arm, Drinian felt his companion sag. Certain of the servants might fear the wrath of Prince Miraz or his wife, but Cofian had taken cuffs enough from both to support any childish plot against them.

“His Royal Highness and the Lord Drinian – have you knowledge of them?”

“Saw them not half an hour ago on the front lawn, Your Majesty,” answered the other with perfect truth. “Practising swordsmanship with a pair of rotten boughs with my Lady Katharina trippin’ about giving advice, they were.”

“Well, then, Brother, what say you?” Escape was impossible with the King’s bulk cutting the last slivers of light from beneath the door. “Are those boys magicians that can appear in two places at one time?”

“We are not a half-hour’s walk from the lawns,” muttered Miraz. 

Drinian could imagine his pose: head down; bottom lip jutting out; hands hanging by his sides - more like a drowned puppy than a Prince of the House of Telmar. And when _he_ deflated, his lady went down like a wilted plant too. He felt himself starting to grin at the mental image. 

“Yet none has seen those two scapegraces enter the palace. My Lord Tirian, you will investigate – for my brother’s comfort – the appearance of so terrifying a creature in Our sister’s chambers. Should our sons prove to be concerned in the affair, We shall hear their apologies Ourself. Master Cofian, are you proficient in the art of hunting mice?”

“Never having tried, Sire… I’ll fetch the kitchen cat.”

The Lady Prunaprismia could be heard to groan. “Vicious, flea-infested beast!”

“Miraz, escort Her Highness to a safe distance from all creatures with more than two legs. Very good, Cofian, be about your business: and you, my Lord Tirian, set to yours! Glad shall I be to hear that our troublesome sons have been breaking timber all morning!”

Drinian sucked in a deep breath and held it, straining sharp ears for the last footfall. Caspian plucked at his sleeve just as the burning in his lungs grew too much. “Have they gone?”

“Aye.” No trumpet shrilled the alarm as he shoved the door outward, hand curled around the knob to pull it back should the need arise. “Hurry, Caspian, down the back stair and through the kitchens! Katharina can only pretend to be hunting us through the orchard for so long!”

“Your father…”

“Won’t search too hard for us. Did you hear him try not to laugh at the squawking crow?” The epithet was unfitting for a princess (by marriage, so Mamma always pointed out with the disdain of a lady born to titles) but he could think of none cleverer while scurrying from the shadow of the birch rod hovering over his buttocks. The King might be amused, but were they to be caught punishment must follow. Madam Prune and Prince Mope would see to that!

Down the finely decorated passageways, around sweeping corners and down a narrow stairway into the cool, bare domain of the servants, where discreet shadows dipped and ducked at the sight of a royal prince. Caspian panted, short legs struggling to match the pace of his longer-limbed companion. “Cofian!” he gasped as a familiar lanky figure blasted around a tight bend in the corridor toward them, wrestling a spitting bundle of bright orange fur. In a fluid movement the footman turned, veering off down another hall leading in quite the opposite direction to that he had intended. Caspian stopped dead, hands on hips, a monumental pout forming on his cherubic face.

“I thought footmen were supposed to stop and bow when they see the King’s son,” he yelped. Thrusting out an arm to yank him into motion, Drinian speared him with a withering look.

“He was trying _not_ to see you, simpleton! Or do you forget the hordes of Tash are on our heels?” Had _he_ been such an addle-pate at six? Katharina would have understood the cause of Cofian’s seeming rudeness, and she was barely five!

“Oh!” Caspian sniggered at his own stupidity, stumbling over the low step down into the bakery where a dozen fellows prostrated themselves with hidden grins at their Prince’s undignified appearance. He managed a smile, remembering his father’s strictures on courtesy to one’s subjects, before tumbling out into the dappled sunlight of the vegetable garden that ran the length of the palace’s hidden west wall. 

“Drinian! ‘Tis not fair, let me try, girls are just as strong as – ouf!”

Both boys laughed out loud. “Your sister puts on a fair show,” Caspian guffawed, setting off with renewed energy toward the trees from which the sweet, high voice was trilling. Sitting on a low apple bough, chubby legs and green satin skirts swinging, Katharina Etinsmere waved cheerfully. “Papa looked out five minutes ago,” she reported to her brother, no longer troubling as she once would to run and greet him. “I screeched a little, called you a very devil, and he went indoors directly.”

“I’ll take a thrashing for that, I dare say, if I can invent no explanation!”

“Why should Papa want an explath – explo – exp…” she gave up on the long word, shifting along her rustic seat to grant him room beside her as Caspian flopped into the long grass about the tree’s base. “Do we not call each other such names daily?”

“Aye.” Absent-mindedly he gave her a brisk hug that brought a glow of pinkish pleasure to her plump cheek. “Papa shan’t search too hard for us, Caspian. I’ll wager he wishes _he_ could hide a mouse in the shrill crone’s shoe, and the King, as well!”

“I hope I may stay a Prince, then, and be free to do as I wish with silly, shrieking aunts.” Diligently stripping a twig of its bark, Caspian grinned up at his friends. “Princes have much more fun than kings do! Will we be called for luncheon soon, do you think? I’m ravenous!”


	3. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which life is turned upside-down for the young family of Etinsmere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bad Things are about to happen. The violence here is off-screen (so to speak) but I hope its aftermath is very much centre-stage.

Hazy autumnal sunshine caught specks of floating dust before the bare attic schoolroom’s window. Engrossed in scratching a schooner’s hull into a page with the dry end of his quill, Drinian did not hear the quack of approaching voices, shooting to attention only at the ominous screech of the iron-studded door. 

Fortunately for him his elderly tutor had been equally inattentive, dozing behind his desk until the sound brought him upright with creaking knees and the clattering of an overturned chair. The Lord Tinian spared him a brief smile that widened at the impressive courtly reverence offered by his heir.

“Sir; Mother; Katharina.” Discreetly brushing paper dust from his book, Drinian composed his features into a suitably blank expression. At a nod from his employer, Schoolmaster Mallian scuttled like a startled crab into the corridor, closing the door with its familiar wail behind him. 

“Your mother rides for Greenglade directly.” Tirian, so said His Majesty, addressed even his dearest as he would a recalcitrant mariner aboard his fledgling fleet. “What’s this you have? _The Lives of the Renowned Rulers_ , eh? And whom do you study today?”

“King Erimon the First, Sir.” Beyond the name he remembered nothing of the famous king’s existence. “Has grandmamma sickened again, Mamma?”

As he hoped the mournful sympathy of his look diverted both parents from inconvenient musings on his education. “Your uncle summons me with all speed,” Elizabetha affirmed, the bottomless dark eyes she had bequeathed both her raven-haired, long-limbed Etinsmeres brimming. “Which means I must be away at once if I’m to be beyond the Black Woods before dusk.”

“Who will read my bedtime story?” Katharina pulled her mother’s soft plum velvet sleeve. Tirian swept her up to perch high on his shoulders, her glossy ringlets swinging into his face. 

“Papa can read tolerably well for an evening or two,” he boomed. “And what of the young master here? Does he require a story?”

“Thank you, Sir, but I’m grown beyond such silliness.” As his sister lashed from her high perch, fingers grazing his unruly crown, their father’s laughter rebounded from the low roof beams until the very walls seemed to thrum with the sound. Casting his eyes down, Drinian snatched at a sentence in the Life of Erimon that, uniquely among the facts listed in a dry tome, had intrigued him. “Sir – why do we name our coins as Lions and Trees, not the Pestas and Shillons of Telmar as they did in King Erimon’s time? I was about to ask it of Master Mallian. The Lord Sopespian says our coins named for a _barbaric folly_.”

He observed a storm gathering in the creases about his father’s eyes. Just as swiftly it dissipated, though the effort it cost was apparent in the twitch of a muscle at his temple. “The Lord Sopespian speaks less sense than the Demented Dame of the Southern Hills! Those are Telmarine coins and we of Narnia long ago ceased to consider ourselves to be sons of Telmar – or those of us with our wits did!”

“Tirian, enough!” his wife protested automatically.

“The lad deserves answer, Elizabetha: as bosom ally to His Highness, he’ll play his part in the governance of the realm one day.” Papa was sombre, and that unnerved him more than Drinian cared to admit. “Our coins take their name from Narnian myth and fable, and it ill behoves any race to trample the myths of their motherland. Did His Highness repeat the old wom – Sopespian’s words?”

“He heard that the Lady Prunaprismia told them to Lord Miraz, Sir.”

His mother tutted. “Did I not tell His Majesty that female he calls the Prince’s nurse ought to learn _discretion?_ Fills the child’s head with nonsense and permits that he eavesdrops on his elders!”

“That harridan can be heard from the farther side of the kingdom!” Brother and sister shared a gleeful look, cut short by their father’s frown. “Enough of these trifles! My lady’s escort awaits, we must see her safe away. A fair gallop will see you safe to your brother’s house before moonrise.”

*

For two days life continued tranquilly. Drinian attended his lessons with all the diligence he could muster; suffered the visit of his dancing master with no more than a roll of the eyes; and divided his leisure time between teasing his unfortunate sister and daydreaming of the ships Papa declared would one day make Narnia queen of the sea. Grandmother Greenglade was not so dangerously sick as had been believed. Mamma would be home on the morning of the third day with her escort of household men. And soon they would ride south and inland again, to visit Caspian at the Palace.

*

The manor was silent, all the servants in their beds. The large nursery lay in darkness, rocking horse and miniature galleon casting frightful shapes across the floor to shift in the dappling light of a pallid half-moon. Curled beneath heavy woollens on a low pallet in his small room to the east Drinian shifted in his sleep, the bass whisper of a voice in the opposing bedchamber barely tickling his ear.

In the window of that little room a lantern glowed, its feeble light useful only where it struck polished window glass. Beyond in the encircling woods, had anyone been about to hear it, a strange sound broke the midnight spell: the fretful whinny of a nervous horse.

Sliding from her shelter of cloud the moon brushed her beams across something hard and shiny, lancing icy shafts through the gloom. Drinian rolled onto his side, nose wrinkled against an imagined stench. Beneath his window gravel crunched, but he heard nothing beyond the whistle of the sea storm in his dream. 

Then came the crack and crunch of breaking timber.

_The mainmast!_ He shot bolt upright with the covers clutched to his throat, fog dissipating from his head as his landlocked surroundings came into focus. Rough voices echoed in the hall: the outraged bellow of Papa and then another, shrilling with defiance; then a third, deep and toneless, with a note that made Drinian’s blood run cold, and all of them sliced through with Katharina’s frightened mew. Metallic footsteps clanged on the old wooden stair and he buried himself under the covers, trembling less with cold than fear as the clamour grew and the voices and the thudding melded into a great chaotic ringing that threatened to burst through his skull. 

Someone groaned; someone staggered, a great bulk making the walls shudder as it slumped. Katharina’s scream tore through Drinian’s brain, snapping the invisible cords that held his limbs and sending him tripping, nightgown coiling like a malevolent serpent around his ankles, across the floor. “Treason!”

He snatched up a miniature wooden cudgel that lay just inside the nursery door and staggered across the spacious playroom, panic deadening his senses. Katharina’s shrieks rose another octave; the low rumble of a stranger’s voice bade her stop her tongue. 

And as his hand curled around the doorknob, the shiny brass sending a chill through his damp palm, her crying ceased.

“No, my lord!” His turn to yell – or try to as he was spun from his mission into the muffling softness of a familiar embrace. Irina, the plump dame who had cared for Etinsmere’s heir since the cradle, rocked her chick as if he belonged there still, soaking his disordered hair with tears while still efficiently preventing his feeble attempts at escape. “There’s naught you can do, m’Lord, save protect yourself!”

He stilled, sensing that to struggle was useless, until the clang of metal soles had ceased to ring and the manor was plunged back into awful silence. Only when shock struck and loosed her muscle and bowel to water could he slip free, swift as an eel out of her hold and through the connecting door to Katharina’s chamber.

His legs gave way. A ghastly gurgling sound ripped from his throat and he sank to the floor, the room blurring around him. Blood. He was surrounded by blood.

She lay sprawled across her dainty white-curtained bed: her head slewed weirdly, eyes open and fixed on the ceiling. Across her waxen throat a dark ribbon ebbed and oozed. Barely aware of what he did, Drinian stretched to grasp one tiny foot, his hand jerking back, burned by the icy contact. Dead. _Katharina. Dead._

His chest was hollow. He could neither breathe or move, only kneel at the foot of her bed and stare. If tears fell, he did not feel them; if Irina, or Ellena, or any of the household women gathering sobbed at his back, he had no knowledge of it. “Katharina!”

Her name was no more than a whisper, yet it roused their nurse from her stupor. Gentle hands raised him, a shaky voice crooned meaningless words into his ear. From a great distance he heard another voice, raw and harsh: Ellena, mustering the household in her mistress’s stead. “Ariana, fetch the master a cup o’ something strong, and you, Sulia, pack all you can afore the mistress comes home. M’Lord, you’re Master of Etinsmere now, you must do what his Lordship would’ve wished.”

_Master?_ Numb as he was the word wormed into his mind, ticklish and unwelcome. On an animal wail he flung himself at the unmoving bulk that blocked entry to the main stairway. “Papa! No, Papa!”

Though frantic hands plucked and voices shrilled around him, they could not pry the boy's slight frame from Tirian’s lifeless body. He pummelled the yielding flesh, careless of the sticky gore that coated his nightshirt and hands. Sobs tore through him, emerging in rough, ragged grunts. The world had closed in until only he and the corpse beneath his hands remained, engulfed in a deep black chasm of despair. 

At length his strength began to fail and the women could prise him loose to lay panting against Irina’s shoulder. Gentle fingers pried his mouth open, a cool glass touched his bottom lip and he retched, shuddering from the pit of his empty stomach as raw, pungent spirit seared his throat. A spasm tore his gut, bringing half the liquid back as it had gone. “I – apologise,” he tried to sputter, the word ending on a high giggle as the absurdity of his courtly training struck home. “They’ve killed my father – Kathi…”

“Hush, my Lord, we’ll get you dressed – Janina, fetch biscuit, and fruit and all the wine and water you can carry! Take it down to the mooring as the master instructed.” Ellena left the shaking child to his nurse, her strident practicality keen as a swordsman’s blade through the cloudy haze around him. Drinian roused himself and, though he staggered, stood tall as his years would allow. _I’m Master of Etinsmere,_ he told himself groggily. And the Master of Etinsmere did not wail in the corner while his servants – his _women_ servants – decided what was to be done.

Bold thoughts could not translate into decisive speech, however: when he opened him mouth, the broken squeak of a terrified child came out. “Ellena, wha’…”

“The master gave orders Master Dri – my Lord.” The façade of assurance cracked, and instantly he reached out to snatch her trembling hand. “My lady’ll be home in the morning, and you’d best be ready. If only he’d not commanded her take such an escort to Greenglade! Run along, dress and be ready, your poor mother shan’t be needing more than a wash and a bite o’ bread. Hurry, ‘tis what the master would wish!”


	4. Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The survivors must flee, but all's not lost. The King will protect his friend's widow and heir - won't he?

The sky had cleared to a fine aquamarine hue by the time they crept, their heads hidden under coarse sacking hoods, down through the woods toward a narrow inlet shielded by tangling shrubs. “M’Lady, we should come with you,” Horse-Master Peridan grated, the first words Drinian had heard spoken since Mamma’s shriek on seeing her family’s broken remains. “Sailin’ along these haunted shores, a lady and a boy… you need protection, Ma’am, aye, and a hand at the oars as well!”

“Dear Peridan.” Elizabetha summoned a wan smile, and only Drinian, clutching at her ramrod arm, guessed what it cost her. “You never handled an oar in your life! You must protect our women and the house: keep all safe until my Lord Drinian and I can return. Here, Jostain! Dig out the anchor and push her off – is that the term? Climb in, child. I shall depend on you to set sail and steerage.”

“The luck o’ the Conqueror go with you, Ma’am.” Thorian, chief of her husband’s household men, could barely force out the words. Whey-faced, Elizabetha stretched from the boat as it bobbed on the quiet waters of one of the River Etin’s countless narrow tributaries to kiss his big gnarled hand.

“And with you, old friend. My brother will protect us, and when His Majesty learns of this outrage his justice will strike at the perpetrators. He was my lord’s good friend, he won’t fail us now! Hold our fellows in readiness: my Lord Drinian will return as their master soon enough.”

He felt their eyes on him, and he shrank from their unspoken dismay. A child, master of mighty Etinsmere! What substitute for the great warriors who had led them in past days?

“M’Lord had the best o’ tutors,” Peridan stated loyally, bringing the ghost of a smile to every face. “But Ma’am, we should accompany you to Greenglade.”

“An armed troop clattering through the woods might bring the whole of Narnia down on us!” Though her words were stern, the tone belied them. It occurred to Drinian that Mamma might secretly long for just such protection. “Now, we dare not delay if we’re to reach Greenglade before tomorrow dawn. Drinian, can you set sail and steerage?”

For the first time in hours he was useful. As she leaned all her slight weight into the oars he attacked the small canvas square of sail with the fury of contained frustration, coaxing the little vessel out into midstream and away from their solemn party of watchers toward the sea. At the moment the sluggish drift of the creek dissolved into the lush roll of open water it seemed his lungs filled anew and his heart beat stronger. He was, after all, still alive.

Papa had taught him to handle the boat _Lady Elizabetha_ as soon as he could toddle unaided but he had never commanded the craft at spring tide, and caution kept him within sight of the shore as she skittered southward on a lively breeze that spared her namesake from prolonged struggle at the oars. With the burst of activity done he collapsed, breathing hard, onto the helmsman’s bench, oblivious for once to the fiery gold and orange glory of the autumn woods sliding by. 

His eyes burned and his mouth tasted gritty. Only Mamma’s insistence compelled him to nibble the corner of a dry biscuit that lay in his belly with the weight of a lead ball. Yet he would never recall feeling panic as the hours merged together, not even at the moment when his mother shuddered and turned her frightened face quickly from his. “Steer out, dearest; we must not stray close to that place.”

Dumb instinct made him obey before realisation struck, the little vessel veering wide of the island where, glowering from an impossible height, a building’s ruins cut jagged scars into the sky “Is that where the demons hide?” he heard himself ask. The Lady Elizabetha pressed a chilly finger to his lips.

“Don’t speak of them, Drinian! Your poor grandfather could never bear to think of us surrounded by the ghosts of these woods!”

“If there are ghosts, what harm have they ever done our House?” It was Papa’s argument, one Drinian had heard him expound many times before the court. “They were no ghosts that – that…”

“Hush, I know.” Though their craft rocked violently under her tentative movement, Elizabetha shuffled to wrap an arm around his heaving shoulders. “His Majesty will have the heads of whichever vagabonds have taken Papa, and my brother Greenglade will give us shelter until justice is served.”

“Don’t want justice.” It was childish and he was Master now, above such foolery. But his head ached viciously from the night’s clamour and the glare of the sun and he felt too small and useless to stem the tears that scalded his swollen eyes. “I want Papa and Kathi, and even the King can’t bring them back!”

“No.” Her voice cracked, and he cursed himself for adding to her distress. “But he _will_ see your inheritance secured. Most likely he’ll take Etinsmere under his own protection. He was your father’s friend, and he will be ours so long as we need him.”

Mutely he nodded, turning his gaze back to the shore, less rugged ahead though the coastal woods thickened again the farther south one travelled. By the Conqueror’s Shield, he longed for the steep hills and glades of Etinsmere! 

_What was that?_ He stiffened, tense as a cat about to strike. Movement in the trees! The shadowy figure of a soldier?

No. The silhouette was too small; no shaft of piercing sunlight glanced back from armour plate. Drinian’s stomach clenched, his knuckles cracking under his terrible grip of the tiller. A dwarf? A faun? _Old Narnia?_

_Better that than a Telmarine in arms_ , he thought, though ice formed to tickle the base of his spine and he eased the boat out beyond even the sharpest lookout’s range from land. He lingered several minutes beyond sight of the shore before directing the _Lady Elizabetha_ back onto a landward tack, vaguely surprised by his utter want of excitement. The ancient creatures survived. He had known it.

It didn’t matter. 

At last they spied the mud banks and reed beds that shielded access to the Narnian heartland (the stream which gave its name to Glasswater Province from the old stories, though Drinian dared not tell his mother so) and with much heaving and gasping and slithering on muddy banks, they contrived to get their vessel out of the shallows and modestly hidden in the undergrowth. “We must hurry,” his mother panted, wiping mud-streaked hands down the side of her torn dun-coloured gown. “If we’re to reach Greenglade in darkness.”

It never occurred to him to question how Mamma knew her way across miles of Narnian countryside. He fell into step behind her, letting the rough branches and dying leaves strike his face and hands, catching in his damp hair until he might have passed for a woodland creature himself. His feet began to throb, then burn, but his mind settled into a blissful sort of numbness while the light faded away and the very air began to hum with weird sounds. There was no Etinsmere: no pain or uncertainty. Just the steady squish of tired feet on damp earth, the hypnotic rhythm of ragged breathing, and the chilly kiss of air against his cheek. 

How long it continued he would never know, even if the memory remained vivid to his dying hour. A cloak was thrown over his shoulders, though he had no recollection of feeling the cold. Only once did his mother pause, producing a flask of watered wine and a handful of sugared fruits for sustenance. The moon rose, full and brilliant; the trees rustled and twigs cracked as if under the weight of a troop of small feet.

It ought to have terrified him, a Telmarine unarmed in the clutches of his kind’s ancient enemies, but he gave the secret inhabitants of the forests not a thought. With exhaustion came a wonderful emptiness which enveloped mother and son alike. No conversation was attempted. None was needed. 

It lasted until they reached the abrupt end of the forest, where trees gave way to newly-harvested field without warning and left them exposed, stark black figures against the cloudy softness of the sky. 

“This is your uncle’s land,” Elizabetha murmured, barely needing to bend to hiss into his ear. “Across this valley and up yonder slope to the north is his manor. We need only wait there until His Majesty sends for us.”

It was meant as reassurance. Somewhere deep in the corner of his mind still active he knew that, but it was unnecessary. Had half the King’s troops, armed to the teeth and screaming war cries been massed before him, he would still have pushed on, unmindful of the slicing agony of burst blisters across his soles, toward the gentle rise of land topped by the moated fortress of Greenglade.

Lanterns burned in the great gatehouse; the castle beyond blazed with light. Drinian blinked against its unexpected harshness, puzzling at the sight of armed men from his uncle’s retinue patrolling the crenulated battlements into the smallest hours, but had time to do no more before a raw, deep voice halted his leaden step. “Who comes?”

“Master Lorian, ‘tis Elizabetha, my lord’s sister; and my Lord of Etinsmere come to seek the protection of my brother Arlian. Grant us entry in your late lord my father’s name!”

“Madam! Swing down the drawbridge, men, and call my lord from his chamber.” Instantly the captain of the guard’s manner changed. “M’Lady come within, and quickly! Don’t you know half the kingdom’s in uproar hunting you?"


	5. Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things could hardly be worse. Could they? In the new Narnia, of course they could...

The change from cool open space to the confines of Greenglade’s smoke-filled square Tower Parlour, dominated by the shaggy bulk of its master, shook Drinian from his trance. “You may hide safe here, Liza,” Arlian boomed, dragging a stool toward the hearth onto which she collapsed like an abandoned toy. “Though the hounds yelp before the gates, they shall not have you!”

“Hounds, brother?” Listlessly she sipped a cup of strong beef broth, beyond recognising its rich taste. Oddly enervated, Drinian gulped at his, relishing its scald against his raw throat. Arlian paused in an uncomfortable stoop to the fire, slewing to fix her with a bewildered stare.

“Can you not know half Narnia’s roused by the hue and cry?” he blurted. “You’re accused, sister: the killing of your lord and the stealing away of the children. And where _is_ my niece? Twice already I’ve chased that villain Glozelle from our orchards, but don’t fret: no daughter of Greenglade will be slandered by that preening damned blackguard!”

“Tirian was in her chamber. It’s not known that she…”

“Her throat was cut,” Drinian stated, horribly flat. Arlian spat a violent oath. 

“Conqueror confound the monsters that could – Liza, I’ll see this is made known and the vile brigands brought to punishment, no matter what the rabble say!” 

“The King cannot believe…”

Arlian’s head dropped and Drinian’s heart stuttered at the sight of tear tracks running between bushy yellow fringe and unkempt beard. “The King is dead,” his uncle announced, pushing broad fingers back through his unruly mane. “Hence the guard at my gate and the arrogance of Messire Glozelle! Miraz screeches commands from a palace surrounded by his affinity. None of Caspian’s council are admitted beyond the courtyard. What greater disaster can befall us, Liza? Narnia and Etinsmere lost on the same black night!”

“Uncle, what of Caspian?” Both grown-ups started: he wondered if it was his question, or merely his presence that surprised them. “What will happen to him? The Queen’s long dead, now his father…”

“Every man of honour in the kingdom will stand surety for your playmate.” A meaty paw dispensed a cuffing meant as consolation. “Miraz dare not strike his nephew but Caspian is – how old?”

“Six, m’Lord.” Black brows knit, Drinian chewed hard on his lip. “He has his nurse I know, but no Mamma. He must be lonely!”

“Ah.” Uncle visibly relaxed. “You’re alarmed for his comfort, as a friend ought to be. For a moment I thought….”

“Brother, enough!” Protectiveness roused Elizabetha from her torpor. “Give us horses and let us be away! I dare not lay Etinsmere’s troubles at Greenglade’s hearth.”

“These are Narnia’s troubles, girl: the kingdom turned on its head.” Uncle had shrunk, Drinian thought groggily, pressing a hand to his spinning head. “And to whom but kin do we look at such a moment? Rest here today: there’s a hard ride before you to cross the Pire Pass before this time tomorrow.”

“If Glozelle should return?”

Arlian almost grinned. “You recall the loose floorboard in our mother’s dressing chamber? Two so scrawny should lie cosy under there! The fool shan’t find you by tearing the manor to pieces!”

“Thank you.” It cost her, but Elizabetha managed to stand unaided: more than Drinian could achieve. His knees gave way and he found himself being hoisted like a sack of turnips over his uncle’s shoulder, the world beginning to bounce with every long stride Arlian took. His every muscle went slack. His eyelids drooped. Before Arlian could deposit him into a nest of blankets on a low, cushioned couch, he was fast asleep.

*

The gentle slap of rain on the window roused him. Disorientated, he let his gaze wander across the ceiling while the querulous quack of Grandmother Greenglade, confined to her bed in the next room, grounded him. Otherwise the silence was terrible until its disturbance and he scratched at the furs which enveloped him, biting hard on his lip to quell the rising urge to cry out. _Where is Mamma? Someone’s coming! Hide!_

He shrank back under the covers, stomach clenching with every thump-thud of running feet in the hall. “Cousin, are you awake? I’ve brought you breakfast – Cook saved some bacon and eggs especially!”

“Nin!” Hoping he was not blushing (or looking as foolish as he felt for cowering from his younger cousin) Drinian kicked his way off the couch, automatically smoothing the random lock of ebony hair that insisted on falling into his eyes. Followed by a buxom, red-cheeked girl bearing a tray, Greenglade’s seven-year-old heir skittered to throw himself down on the sofa.

“Papa says we’re all to pretend you’re not here,” he announced. 

“Then you shouldn’t shout loud enough to be heard the other side of the kingdom!”

“I shall take your breakfast away again if you’re going to pretend to be grown-up. Oh!” Ninian smacked himself resoundingly on the forehead. “I’m sorry. Mamma says we’re all to be respectful and not mention Uncle Etinsmere and – oh!”

“We’re all properly sorry for your troubles, m’Lord.” Setting her burden to waft enticing scents from the window seat, the maid ducked an untidy curtsey. “If there’s aught you want Cook says send word wi’ Master Ninian, and you shall have it. M’Lady Liza’s coming, with the master. She says you must eat: keep your strength up.”

“Thank you.” His stomach grumbled its appreciation. “My mother…”

“Here.” Elizabetha looked ready to crumble into dust, sinking down beside her nephew. “Your uncle has horses standing by and an escort to hasten us to the border after dark. Once in Archenland your father’s sister will give us lodging until the suspicions against me are allayed.”

“Nobody believes them scandalous tales, Ma’am,” the housemaid burst out, her high complexion reddening further under their astonished stares. “I mean, as if a _lady_ could do such terrible things – beggin' your pardon, m’Lord.”

Arlian’s glower faded a notch. “No man – or woman – of honour would think otherwise. ‘Tis Miraz’s doing. Ninian, stop goggling your cousin’s breakfast, do you have no lessons to attend?”

“No, Papa – I mean, yes, Sir. Good-day, Aunt – Drin.” Blushing almost as deeply as the servant, Ninian tripped over his own feet in his haste to flee. For the first time in what felt like months, Drinian laughed. 

Ninian clambered upright with a pout and disappeared. Instantly, Drinian longed for him to return. The temperature seemed to drop as the door snapped shut behind him.

“Eat your eggs before they’re cold,” Mamma instructed, her usually melodious voice dusty as a long-dead twig. “Brother, my lord warned you – surely he trusted you with his fears?”

“Aye.” Uncle dared not meet her eyes, Drinian noted: his expression a match for Nin’s when he expected a whipping for a lesson unlearned. “And I laughed as the King did; called Miraz a knave and a poltroon without the stomach to seize what he yearned for. Don’t condemn yourself that you dismissed his fears, Liza! Few had the sagacity of Tirian.”

She clasped her hands, the hopelessness of the gesture stopping Drinian’s forkful of bacon halfway to his mouth. “What’s to become of Narnia now his worst fears are come true?" she cried. "He warned us! Weak men denied that they take for their _rights_ are more deadly than the striped vipers of the northern waste!”

“M’Lord! There’s a troop of men at arms come!” 

“Down from the window, lad!” He was falling off the window seat before Arlian had time to lunge. Elizabetha scrabbled at the floor, her fingers catching on the rough edges of board until they bled. One came loose in her hands and before Drinian could question why he was hustled beneath it, rugs and breakfast things tossed in around him before his mother slipped down and the floor was closed up. 

“Lie still,” she mouthed against his ear, a hand, ghostly in the darkness, fluttering up to caress his cheek. “We shan’t be discovered here.”

He was sure the pounding of his heart must betray them long before the approaching pack could enter the house. The boards above their heads creaked under Arlian’s relentless pacing. He wanted to sneeze.

Resolutely he pinched his nose and brought his knees up to his chin, aware that Mamma was fidgeting uncomfortably in the confined space. _How long must we skulk down here?_

The muffled stamp of feet stopped. Even dulled by the thickness of the floorboards, Uncle’s voice was menacing. “Glozelle. What is the meaning of this intrusion?”

“The Lord Protector’s business, my Lord.” 

Drinian had always thought of Glozelle as a sniveller: the type of scrawny hound that lurked at the edge of a village watching for scraps, never bold enough to raid an old dame’s kitchen. The edge of insolence in his answer now caused a further twisting of his tense muscles.

“Lord Protector?” Arlian sounded suspicious.

“His Grace Prince Miraz.” Mamma mewed against his shoulder, sending tiny shudders down to his toes. “Who but his late Majesty’s brother should govern the kingdom in the childish years of Prince Caspian?”

“Such matters ought to be decided by the whole council of the realm.” Drinian judged his uncle was directly above them, rocking on his heels as he absorbed the news. “But what business has His Highness with my house? Surely naught that could not be achieved without a troop of swordsmen prying into my mother’s bedchamber!”

“I beg pardon for the inconvenience, but all’s done for your lordship’s protection.” A smirk was audible. Closing his eyes Drinian summoned Glozelle’s lean, foxy face to mind, shaken by the malevolence his imagination conjured. The mutt had its prey cornered, and it was savouring its triumph.

“Your sister is not yet found; she holds her children hostage. You must share the Lord Protector’s alarm for your nephew.”

A slip, Drinian realised, impotent fury swirling until the blackness around him was tinged blood red. Glozelle _knew_ Kathi was dead!

“What beyond secret spite is there to suggest ill of Elizabetha?” Uncle was petulant. Drinian’s gut contracted with the recollection of hearing the exact same tone from Katharina, confronted with evidence of having abducted her brother’s toy soldiers. “A wise man – and one who names himself Protector must be that - does not judge on the wild speculations of the rabble.”

“His Grace wishes only to see the lady exonerate herself, but this disappearance must alarm a loving kinsman.” They were circling each other. Drinian cocked his head, concentrating on identifying each man’s path around the room from their tread. Lighter, quicker steps from Glozelle now; less a hungry stray than a hunting cat. “You can hardly wish for more yourself, Arlian.”

“Aye. And to ensure my sister’s honour, Miraz sends armed men to rampage through my home peering into cupboards?”

“In desperate straits, where is a lady more likely to go than her own place?”

“If she has aught to fear from royal justice, anywhere.”

“You will not impede the Lord Protector’s men?”

“The Prince will have all my assistance, _once_ his government is confirmed by the Great Council."

“And if aught were to befall your kin before it can be summoned?”

“Elizabetha will not hurt the boy.” Uncle’s turn to slip: or was it a test? Drinian knew the Lord of Greenglade to be far cleverer than he looked with his untamed beard and careless clothes.

“The Protector’s Grace will see the Lord Drinian established with all his rights as Master of Etinsmere. You must wish it!”

“His rights are guaranteed by law and custom. Whatever honours he takes upon himself, Miraz can hardly change _that_.”

An awkward shuffle was accompanied by an audible change of tack “The little prince calls for his playmate. Think what solace our orphaned Caspian might take from his bosom friend’s presence!”

“The Prince will have all Narnia to console him, as soon as we're let into the palace!”

"M’Lord!” The intrusion of a third voice made Drinian start, cracking his head on the roughened roof of his hideout. “We’m been through the whole house, sir.”

Glozelle cleared his throat. Drinian cringed from the approaching footsteps, biting his tongue so hard he tasted blood, slippery and copper, against his teeth. “Should her ladyship come to you, in the name of the Lord Protector—“

“In the name of my master Caspian I’ll do that which is right.” Arlian’s voice sounded directly overhead. “Now, if your rabble has distressed a dying dame long enough, I’ll attend my poor mother’s comforts.”

“Of course, my Lord.” And if Glozelle had found the courage to mock the Lord of Greenglade, what must Miraz’s puffed-up pomposity be to bear?


	6. Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's no place in Miraz's Narnia for the new Lord of Etinsmere. Reality is beginning to dawn for Drinian...

For safety’s sake they remained cooped in the Dowager’s dressing room until nightfall: an eternal day of listless card games, barely-touched meals and unfinished conversations that would shimmer through his dreams over years to come. Then, in a flurry of whispering activity, he was bustled through gloomy hallways out to mount a frisky grey pony surrounded by half a dozen stout, stern-faced fellows all armed with bows, swords and shuttered lanterns. 

“The countryside’s deserted,” Uncle was saying in what passed for a whisper to him. “Miraz’s poltroons shan’t bestir themselves among those damnable _trees_ until midday. Erlick here is a man of the border country, he’ll guide you rightly, though how under these leaden skies no man but a demon would know! Mount up, Liza, and remember your promise to Tirian! No looking back!”

“Uncle.” Drinian frowned at the broken reed that was his own voice, raspy from a day’s under-use. “Where do we go?”

“Your aunt in Archenland, lad. Her husband will stand your protector.” Arlian scowled at the unfortunate word, bringing to mind as it did the guardian of another fatherless boy. “King Nain’s an honest fellow, and the late Queen’s brother at that. Half Narnia will be in revolt inside a week - you’ll be installed Lord of Etinsmere soon enough! Now – be away, and quickly! I’ll send what word to Westerwood I may.”

He gave the pony’s flank a lusty slap that set the beast into startled motion. The hoof beats of the whole party began to clatter on the cobbles, making Drinian’s ears ring and quite drowning Ninian’s final salute. 

The boy dared not look back until the encroaching Southern Woods had blocked all trace of Greenglade’s battlements from view. Trusting his borrowed mount to trot in the prints of its fellows he peered through fine drizzle that pattered off leaves and boughs, aware as he had not been the previous night of the countryside through which they passed.

There was none of the adventure he had once dreamed of finding in the forest gloom. He flinched from every small sound: holding himself tense, ready for an assassin’s knife between the shoulders that never came. Around him the men of Arlian’s household cast gigantic shadows, silent as ghosts and no less ominous. Ahead, his mother urged her mount to an extended canter, turning a ghastly white face back every second minute to ensure he remained in her hoof prints. He had no idea how far it was to Archenland. He knew only he did not want to live there.

At length they began to climb, up beyond the tree line, into drenching rain that plastered his hair down and cooled the stinging heat of the tears that scorched his eyes. His pony slithered on the steep slope and one of the shadows thrust out a steadying arm to stay him when Drinian might have slipped from the saddle. The two peaks guarding the pass soared directly overhead, more frightening in the dark than the giant legend claimed they had once been. “We’m nearly at the pass m’lady. Jus’ around the next bend.”

He jumped inches from the saddle at the sound of a rusty croak so close to his ear. Mamma reined in her mount, pausing until his pony’s soft muzzle nodded level with hers “Then you must leave us, Master Erlick. My brother was wise: let no man of his affinity set foot on foreign soil!”

“You know your way, Ma’am?”

She smiled: Drinian heard it in words ringing with a confidence he could not share. “My son is a fair navigator, and Westerwood lies directly north-west of the crossing. Drinian, can you guide us by the stars?”

He nodded, hoping they would interpret his squint skyward as concentration, not the quashing of an awful wave of wretchedness it was. For the first time the enormity of what they undertook struck home, hollowing his innards and forcing the breath from his lungs. Leaving Narnia now was running away, frank defiance of the Protector. Miraz would not forget the insult.

And Caspian was a baby, not seven for months to come. It might be years before he saw Etinsmere again.

They were watching him: a dozen grown-ups depending on a terrified boy for instruction. Desperately, Drinian called his father’s broad-browed, strong face to mind, contorting his leaner features into an impression of the stern façade he knew so well. “So long as we keep The Beaver’s Snout off the starboard quarter, we shall be steering right,” he shrilled, wincing against the harshness of his words. His mother’s taut posture relaxed with heartfelt pride.

“So you see dear Erlick, there’s no cause for you to imperil yourself with even a brief exile. My Lord Drinian will guide us to Westerwood. Urge your master from me, be cautious! Tell him this: my lord died by the enmity of Prince Miraz. Not for any thing would he wish that fate to befall his brother! Drinian, the moment we’re beyond the pass spur your pony to the gallop and ride hard for your aunt’s land. I shall be a stride behind. Now hurry!”

*

Their escort remained silhouetted against the sky as they hared down the southern slope of the mountain, sodden cloaks streaming in their wake until they reached the gentle foothills, less wooded than the Narnian equivalents, where the exertions of their mounts began to tell and their frenzied pace slowed to a shambling trot. “We can’t go home, Mamma,” he said at length.

“Having fled in the night? Not while Miraz rules in Caspian’s name.” She drew alongside, paying no more heed than did he to the rain, or the rolling countryside slowly revealing itself through dawn’s languid awakening. “You are Master of Etinsmere now. You know your father often said that ignorance is a sin in a Narnian lord.”

“Miraz had them killed.” He was, Drinian considered, neither ignorant nor dull-witted, though the grown-ups had spoken as freely as if he would understand nothing they said in a day with no more than idle speculation to pass the time. “Papa and His Majesty both.”

“Your uncle believes it; and your father feared the ambition of the Prince should any ill befall his better brother. Murder? Nay, not even Tirian believed he had the stomach for such a crime, but some attempt against King Caspian’s power… yes. 

“He warned the King: urged your uncle; and Glasswater and the Brothers Beaversdam; Bern and Octesian; Revelian and Terian, head of the Passarids to see what Miraz did, building a faction against Caspian's rule. He warned us _all_ against overweening ambition in a second son and the peril of a divided court. Had a dozen men only shared his wisdom, that villain would never have ventured so much!”

“If Uncle accuses him, and the King’s men stand in support…”

“Without the leadership of a great man – like Caspian, or your poor father – who will stand for Narnia?” Tired, she shook her head. “They have no proof – naught beyond suspicion. If the common people rise against their new government, perhaps… but Tirian swore they care nothing for their king’s name so long as their taxes stay modest and their sons are not carried to war! The realm is weak, the court divided… When a vain, jealous man like Miraz seizes that he’s dreamed of all his life, naught but death will tear it from his grasp! There can be no place in _his_ Narnia for Etinsmere’s proper heir. He would make you as much a hostage as the little Prince must be.”

“He dare not hurt Caspian?” Unconsciously Drinian sat a little taller in the saddle, aware of a new deference in his mother’s sombre speech. Exiled fugitive or not, he was Master of Etinsmere. The title, if not its owner, commanded respect.

“Suspicions enough must have been roused: Narnia and Etinsmere gone the same night! To threaten the Prince now would be more than foolish, and Miraz has what your father called _low cunning_. Like that of a rat, he said. Had I only paid heed!”

“The only power that could crush him was the King’s, and he must have loved his brother a little at least.”

“Perhaps.” Her eyebrows knit, and in his heart Drinian shared her palpable doubt. The King had showed his brother only mockery and disdain, the cruelty of a big cat teasing its petrified prey. He remembered a hundreds careless words; a thousand dismissive gestures. How he and his friends had giggled to see the thin, sullen face of Prince Mope wither under each scornful remark!

None of them seemed funny now.


	7. Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Etinsmere's promising heir is Archenland's penniless exile. It's freedom, but at a high price...

Word of their flight had preceded them to the small manor of Westerwood, stout and steel grey in a dreary landscape of harvested field and pasture. “Report from Narnia claims you’re wanted for treason and murder, but King Nain is not the man to be terrified by the yapping of pups,” Admiral Dar hollered, half-carrying his fainting sister-in-law through a square hallway crowded with gawpers and into the airy, L-shaped parlour. Drinian, thighs and buttocks knotted tight with cramp, hobbled after them as best he could, resolutely staring ahead.

“Poor wee mite,” he heard a girlish voice sigh. “So _young!_ ”

Hot colour started up the side of his neck and deliberately he lifted his chin, piercing the knot from which the voice emanated with his best glare. He ached everywhere; his belly was clenched tight with a potent mix of fright, hunger and misery. But he was still the Master of Etinsmere. To be the object of a servant’s pity was more than he could bear.

*

It was a sensation he discovered as the empty days wore on that he had little choice but to harden his heart against. It was evident in the wide-eyed stares of the household, scurrying past his attic chambers on tiptoe as if they were afraid of rousing a slavering monster, not a cowering boy; in the well-meaning, if painful, clouts on the back from Uncle, whose voluble sympathy alerted half a kingdom to the Narnians’ plight; and the whispery lectures of Aunt, tall and lean as an aged silver birch, whose sense of family pride seemed more wounded than her heart by her younger brother’s violent end.

“Better for Etinsmere that your grandfather had never pulled Caspian the Eighth as a prince from that muddy ditch!” she grumbled, glancing up from her flicking needles on the fifth interminable evening after a frugal dinner, while he struggled to study his book by the parlour fire’s dancing light. “For centuries we had peace in our own province before my poor father, for whom you were named, chose to end the discord between us and the House of Telmar!”

“Papa was glad he did, Aunt: and had he not, I should never have been Caspian’s friend.” The story of how Telmar and Etinsmere had revived their former intimate friendship in the rescue of Caspian’s grandfather by his on an ancient hunting expedition had been a staple of his father’s tale-telling, one Mamma declared grew taller with each recitation. “Has there been no word of him?”

“None.” His mother lifted her gaze from the floor, speaking her first word since breakfast time that he could recall. She coughed cautiously into the napkin on her lap. “But you mustn’t fret for him: your uncle sent word with a pedlar who crossed the pass this morning. Miraz treats him with deference and all’s done in his name. You must not expect him to send word himself.”

“Will he be kept prisoner?”

All three grown-ups shuddered, a wordless answer that chilled him to the marrow. “May I leave the room?” he asked in a small voice. Mamma flicked a worried look toward their hosts.

“If you wish, but don’t dwell on your playmate’s plight.” He steadied himself for another of Dar’s genial cuffings, biting off the insolent answer that stung his throat. “The poltroon dare not rouse his lords with another death! Aye, get to your bed, lad: your new tutor will come tomorrow and he has your aunt’s promise you’ll make him a diligent pupil!”

“I will try, Sir – Aunt.”

“Tirian called you _clever but inattentive_ when last he troubled to write.” The instant the words were out, Katharina the elder scrambled to recall them. “Though he was so busy with the King’s affairs I supposed I ought to be thankful he recalled his absent sister at all! Sleep well, Drinian. Shall I send Marisa with a posset?”

“No, Madam – thank you.” He made a hasty bow and fled before any more smothering kindnesses could be heaped on him, racing for the privacy of his bedroom before his control should fail.

Everything about Westerwood might have been designed to remind him how superior was Etinsmere. The house was smaller; colder; the country flat and featureless, with no more than a fishpond for a toy boat to sail across within a dozen leagues. Aunt’s ceremonious presence vied with the rambunctiousness of Uncle, both of them kind in the way near-strangers feel they must be to unwanted guests. They had no children; nor did any of their acquaintance that had come to commiserate and gawp. 

The room’s bare walls seemed to close in around him, as if he were no less a prisoner than Caspian must be – they had not denied it. As much for loneliness as grief, he pounded the soft mattress and howled into his pillows until he could cry no more. 

Then Narnia rose around him again.

Drenched in blood, he stood amid the ruins of Etinsmere: its sandstone walls crumbled and the verdant woodland turned to ash. He was no longer alone. Papa and Katharina laughed at him, their beloved faces twisted into fearsome masks, blood oozing from their noses and mouths. 

He threshed across the bed, hot tears seeping under tightly closed eyelids as he watched himself spin away, tripping over his feet toward the main door which stood defiant in the middle of the wreckage. It swung inward to reveal a hideous beast in full armour, sword raised to strike down at his unguarded head.

“This is _my_ land,” it squawked, the quarrelsome quack of Prince Miraz somehow emerging from the mottled, fleshy features of the dead Caspian. The blade whirled above him: Drinian saw himself sink to his knees, neck bared for the blow. 

The being had _hooves_. Its legs were covered with rough brown fur. He shuffled backward, careless of the demons closing in behind. They were known: human, not part Telmarine, part Old Narnian like the monstrosity which stooped down, smoky breath charring his face, ready to…

“Drinian! Please wake dearest, you are safe!”

“Mamma!” Drenched with sweat he rocketed up into her embrace, scanning the room for pursuing monsters. “I saw – it was Papa and Kathi and there was a monster, and Etinsmere in ruins….”

“Hush, Etinsmere will stand long beyond our time: and your father would never do you harm.” She rocked him like an infant, smoothing the hair which stuck at wild angles from his crown. Drinian closed his eyes, his ragged breathing beginning to slow as the frenzied tempo of his heartbeat ceased to thunder in his ears. No half-human horrors or fallen castle walls reared up through the darkness. 

No Papa. No little sister with an endless braid to pull, or to giggle with in a corner. Just the silence of Aunt’s neat manor, and the running sore that was his memory of all he had lost.

For an instant he wished the murderers had found him too.

“You never even undressed.” Mamma’s clucking attentions pulled him up from his self-pitying trough. She tugged impatiently at the wrinkled linen of his dark hose. “Quickly, find your night shirt and climb into bed before your aunt hears. Shall I stay?”

“No! I - thank you.” He dipped his head, not before, he suspected, she spied the angry tears spiking his eyelashes. “I’m sorry, Mamma.”

“That the last week has frightened you?” Her bones creaked with the small effort of standing. Before he could object she had unlaced his jerkin, yanking the quilted satin loose. “’Tis no weakness to be afraid, Drinian. The bravest people are those that can admit fear, as your father did.”

“What will we do, Mamma?” He would be taller than her soon, Drinian noted absently. “Can we ever go home?”

“When Miraz falls, aye.” Elizabetha drifted toward the door, reluctant, he realised, to face him with the truth he already understood. “Until then, we must presume on your Aunt’s kindness, and be as little trouble as we may. You _will_ try to please her, Drinian? Your father delighted in your careless speaking but Aunt Katharina would have the men of her House more _courtly_ in their ways. While we're under her roof, we must oblige her as far as possible.”

Mamma Drinian realised, greatly relieved, liked Aunt’s stifling formality no better than he did.

“I will be good, Mamma,” he promised, almost managing not to roll his eyes. She just avoided patting his head.

“I don’t doubt it. Will you let me have a glass of hot milk brought to you? I know the nightmares are frightening, but they will fade. Give them time, and your dreams will be of sailing trips again.”

He pursed his lips against the tide of bile rising from his gut, dismissing her good intentions with a brief nod. She hesitated a moment, nodded to herself, and was gone.

Immediately, he wished she had stayed. The walls closed in again. He crumpled back onto the bed half-dressed and let the silent tears fall.


	8. Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> News comes from Narnia. The Master of Etinsmere can hardly expect it to be good...

He managed to receive Master Harmin with courtesy, although it was quickly apparent that the dry old academic could make Mallian at Etinsmere sound like the liveliest of Caspian IX’s storytellers. He endured the arrival of a dancing master and a fencing teacher with what he considered admirable equanimity. He baulked only at his aunt’s decree that a guide in deportment be summoned to ensure the Narnian lord did not disgrace his family at the Archenlandish court. 

“For we are summoned by His Majesty to Anvard, and the opinion the court forms at your presentation will determine your future position in the country,” she told him, gripping him by the wrists hard enough to bruise. “A herald is come from Narnia with demands for your return. His Majesty will hear the Lord of Etinsmere give account of himself before considering Master Miraz’s request.”

She peered down into his sullen face, just the smallest curl of a full lip indicating her displeasure. “You understand the importance of this audience, child? Your mother stands accused of treason and murder. You are her best defender.”

“Surely her innocence is that, Madam?” The words were insolent, and irrepressible. His mother’s long hand rested against his arm.

“Drinian, enough,” she pleaded. 

“I’m sorry, Aunt.”

“I _am_ sorry,” the elder woman corrected sternly. “Elizabetha, what grammarian did you have to teach the boy?”

“The tutor chosen by your brother, my dear. Drinian, you must know – innocence is not enough in the face of a campaign of such vile rumour. What commotion is that, Katharina?”

“Wife! Sister! Here’s a half-dead wretch come over the pass from Narnia!”

Aunt’s pale, perfect hands clenched reflexively. “He _must_ summon one as if he were halfway across the ocean!” she muttered. “Your brother’s man, no doubt. We shall receive the Lord of Greenglade’s servant in the west parlour, Husband. Elizabetha…”

“Drinian must hear: especially with His Majesty’s determination on our fate imminent.” If it were possible for Mamma to pale more he thought she did then, and his heart sank with dawning comprehension. Papa’s funeral. The King’s. The Lord of Etinsmere must bear with every detail of those hateful matters, even if he _was_ a wretched, helpless child.

He straightened the sleeve of his black satin jerkin and moved determinedly away from the women, taking station with his back to the window as his father always had when messengers came. His mother took a sharp step toward him, then checked herself, a sad smile ghosting across her thin face. “He is Master of Etinsmere, Katharina. Would you have him ignorant?”

“Of course not. Husband, summon wine – or would you prefer ale, sir? - for our guest. What news have you for us of Narnia, Master…?”

“Lorian, m’lady.” Uncle Greenglade’s sturdy captain looked like a man recently pulled across country by the stirrup: his hair wilder than Drinian’s ever managed to appear; mud streaking his face; and a ribbon of torn material fluttering from his russet coat. “And I apologise that I’m lookin’ such a sight – had to slide down a ditch to escape a party riding hard from the palace with instruction for the herald at Anvard, just this side o’ the pass. M’Lord Drinian – Ma’am. My master bids me tell you first, he is well, and safe.”

“I am - glad.” Elizabetha’s slight nod prompted him into answering for both. “Miraz’s men do not - not - harass Greenglade?”

“No more’n they do the rest o’ the late King’s party, Sir.” A servant lifelong of his master’s family, the big man showed no unease in accepting a slim, stuttering boy as the room’s most significant being. “The master’s not been near the Palace: the Lord Protector’s affinity crowd the halls, guarded the late King’s body ‘n’ surrounded the little Prince at his funeral. The physician that attended when His Majesty’s death was first cried came from Miraz’s household. Why, half the court o’ Narnia’s ignored, and my master is of that party.”

“My father—“

“A fine funeral, m’Lord, with all the ceremony that could be: banners an’ trumpeters, and all the folk o’ the North Country gathered. You’d have been right proud, m’Lord – Ma’am – to see how they grieve for the Lord Tirian in them parts. The Protector attended too – got hissed and jeered, for they’ve took it badly that your Ladyship be slandered, Ma’am.”

Drinian smirked, fierce pride in his own rash people swelling his chest. “And Lord Sopespian stood chief mourner,” Lorian continued, gulping the ale brought to him as if he could not feel the change that instantly chilled the room. “He’s appointed guardian of Etinsmere in your absence, and they don’t take well to _that_ , either!”

“Sopespian?” He spat the name as if it tasted of wormwood. “He is no kin to us – and he goes in terror of the Northern Woods! He fairly swooned like a maid when I talked of riding through them alone! Why not Mavramorn as mourner, his great-grandmother was sister to Papa’s? Solivar of Lantern Waste is blood-kin too, if Uncle Greenglade was not _trusted_ enough!”

“Sopespian has been of Miraz’s council these many years.” Elizabetha reminded him mildly. “And anyway your father thought his Cousin Solivar a craven traitor in his adherence to the Prince!"

“And Sopespian was not?” The same thoughts, he fancied, ran through his mother’s mind. A babe in leading reins would be a fitter guardian of those rugged, fertile lands than a timorous footman of the Protector’s party! “I trust our people won’t suffer for their defiance.”

“The Protector dursn’t strike out yet, young mas – m’Lord. Not with half the nobility murmurin’ and the commons all in confusion. He made a grand speech; aye, and at His Majesty’s ceremonies too. _The best o’ brothers and the noblest o’ Kings_ , he said. Make sure the Prince is fit to follow in such mighty strides. Burblin’ hypocrisy, if you’ll pardon me sayin’ so!”

“Gladly,” replied Drinian at once. Aunt pursed her lips at him.

“Master Lorian – what’s said of my sister?” It might be vulgar to ask, but even the worst, he was certain, could be borne better for being fully known. “Was she – have they given her burial?”

Like a pricked balloon the burly fellow deflated. He shuffled his feet. Swallowed hard. Fixing his sights on a point above his questioner’s head, he rushed out the awful answer.

“Nobodyknowsm’Lord.”

Drinian closed his eyes and bit down hard against the vomit, acid and sour, that stung his throat. He had imagined it: the Daughter of Etinsmere tossed like a rancid meat joint into an unmarked pit. Abandoned to rot without honour or memorial. 

He would see her avenged. He would see justice for all of them!

Lorian cleared his throat, wordlessly asking permission. With a jerk of the head, Drinian gave it.

“First proclamation said she was stolen away – beg pardon, Ma’am!” he added, ducking an untidy bow toward the bereaved mother. “’Twas only after you were beyond the country it changed. Now they say – Conqueror strike them down, I can’t say it…”

“They say I killed her as I did my lord.” Mamma’s words dissolved into a fit of harsh coughing. Drinian dashed from his isolated position to thump her resoundingly on the back, scrabbling with his free hand for a handkerchief to mop her streaming eyes. “What other tale – forgive me – could they muster?”

“The first proclamation was written before!” The exclamation burst from him. Drinian began to pace, faster and more furiously as reality’s starkness struck like a well-aimed crossbow bolt. “Miraz sent those men to murder Papa. They killed Kathi in panic and their nonsense of a story had to be changed. They’d hang Mamma for their own crimes, and I shan’t let them do it! I’ll wager Miraz killed the King’s Majesty himself!”

None of the grown-ups countered him. Aunt dodged awkwardly to one side as he marched blindly toward her, bristling like a caged lion in his impotent rage. The air thrummed about his head until he could barely hear himself speak but he kept ranting, cursing lest despair overcome anger and leave him weeping, a pitiful child where the head of a proud and ancient dynasty should stand. 

He barely noticed Aunt ushering their messenger away; half-heard himself manage the necessary thanks for the man’s trouble. He knew when the door had shut behind them only because Mamma glided to him, arms lifted in an offer of consolation.

He shoved her away. “I don’t want comfort!” he yelled, kicking out at an oak carved boat box facing the door. “They killed Papa and Kathi and the King and now they have Narnia for themselves, and it’s not fair! They accuse _you_ – murder and treason my elbow, they’re guilty of both themselves! Mamma, I want to go home!”

“You know that can’t be.” Her hand fluttered as delicate as a butterfly wing against his cheek and he found himself turning to bury his hot face against her neck, powerless to control the shuddering sobs that racked him. “But we _shall_ have justice one day: then we’ll return; find your poor sister; and chase Messire Sopespian’s party from our provinces! Hush now, before your aunt can chastise you for conduct unfitting your position! We leave for Anvard soon, and before King Nain you must be master of yourself. I know it’s difficult, but did not your father teach you that a gentleman must always do honour to his rank?”

It was always this way, he reflected. The madness drained as quickly as it was roused, leaving him tired, hollow inside and numbly certain he would never really _feel_ anything for good or ill again. He kissed her pinched cheek, the saltiness of her tears burning his swollen lips, muttered his excuses and charged for the kitchen stair and the nearest escape - via the vegetable patch - from the confines of the estate. 

At home he would have run downhill through knotted bracken to the beach, where the tang of brine in the air and the sigh of the waves against his ear would lull his wildest moods. Slowing to a stroll the moment he was out of doors, Drinian regarded the endless expanse of solid land before him with weary dismay. 

“By the Conqueror’s Sword,” he sighed, guiltily aware the oath would horrify more than just Aunt were it to be heard. “What I shouldn’t give for a sea breeze in my hair now!”


	9. Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He was born to the court of the Telmarine kings. That of Archenland can't hold too many surprises - can it?

Accompanied by every man of Westerwood who could sit a horse respectably (“We’ll make a pretty show for the traitor’s spies, lad!” Uncle Dar had decreed) they trotted south to Anvard through a dizzy dance of early snow, wrapped in waxed cloaks to cover their silk and velvet mourning clothes. “His Majesty will be generously inclined to you for your uncle’s sake,” Aunt told him for the fiftieth time, bringing her fine-boned roan into step with his pony as the countryside became more rolling and small copses showed stark under leaden skies, dotting the hilltops. “But you must rein your temper, answer with more discretion than boldness, and accuse no man! Narnia’s suspicions…”

“Are known here, Madam. I understand.” If there was a better way to practise the alien diplomatic skills required of him than riding beside Aunt Westerwood for hours, Drinian hoped he would never discover it. His nerves were stretched taut as freshly run rigging, causing his skin to prickle and his legs to quiver against his pony’s flanks. “Is that Anvard in the valley?”

“Aye.” Though she turned and the side of her fur hood swung over her lean face, the edge of derision in her tone was unmistakable. “Hardly the great fortress of the House of Telmar, you think?”

“Difficult to defend such a castle in war, I think.”

“Spoken as your father’s son. Do you hear, Husband? My Lord Drinian considers your royal palace unlikely to long withstand assault from an enemy.”

“By the Lion’s Mane, ‘tis fortunate Archenland _has_ no enemy,” Dar chortled, straightening from his forward crouch over the reins. “Our castle is open to all you see boy, not built high and hostile like your Telmarine fortress!”

“No, Sir.” No battlements or arrow slits; a shallow moat a donkey could wade across if the drawbridge were to be raised… suddenly the residence of the House of Telmar had become a less a king’s seat than a stronghold, defensible against assault or siege.

For the first time he considered the possibility it had been intended that way: a sanctuary against the native Narnians his ancestors had vanquished. Recalling the grand poems of battle and conquest he had listened to within its walls suddenly made him feel slightly sick. All the blood and suffering, he thought, turned into tales of heroes and triumphs!

Reared to rejoice in his ancestor Tirian’s deeds as a captain of the Conqueror’s force, the sensation of discomfort was profoundly unwelcome: even if pondering it gave some relief to his shredded nerves with the ordeal looming closer.

Their horses were taken by a gaggle of shock-haired grooms in the discreet grey and tawny livery of the Royal Household. A stick-thin, bent old man with a drooping lower lip in robes Drinian thought of as a gaudy overgrown schoolmaster’s guided them over the drawbridge, through two crowded antechambers and up a wide flight of silver-railed stairs before halting, so abruptly Uncle Dar nearly ran into him, at a pair of huge gilded doors. He rapped vigorously three times, stepping aside at their opening to announce, in a stentorian bellow that must have risen from his boots:

“Drinian, Lord of Etinsmere, to the King’s most gracious Majesty!”

Fifty grizzled heads swivelled toward him. Sucking in a deep breath and feeling very much smaller than he knew himself to be, Drinian took a step forward and bent into his deepest bow.

“The Lord of Etinsmere is dearly welcome. Come, my Lord: bring your companions to Us. We are grateful for your riding through this vile weather to attend us.”

“We are at Your Majesty’s service.” The placid voice made him start, and he was briefly thankful for Aunt’s repeated instruction which made the dutiful answer instinctive. Kings, in his little experience of the breed, boomed across their Audience Chambers, scaring the servants from their wits. They did not snuffle like soft-hearted schoolmasters wiping their noses on the coarse sleeves of their gowns!

The throng parted before him, leaving a ribbon of marble tile clear to the steps of a dais hung with tapestries where, tapping his booted feet against the leg of the throne, King Nain peered down through horn-rimmed spectacles, genially smiling at the solemn little party.

Drinian paused at the foot of the steps and bowed again, gently grasping the plump and be-ringed hand offered for his kiss. Now he saw Caspian’s Uncle Nain, he discovered there was nothing fearsome about him. Indeed everything about him recalled Master Mallian hunched behind his desk more than Caspian the Ninth dominating his Court Chamber!

“We are beseeched by your Uncle Westerwood to give hearing against the pleas of Prince Miraz, styled Lord Protector of the Kingdom of Narnia, that yourself and my lady your mother be expelled from Our dominions and returned to that realm,” King Nain declaimed, sing-song style. “What has Your Lordship to say?”

“That we have hope in naught but Your Majesty’s just heart to protect us against the vile accusations made against my lady, Sire.”

He felt the air stir at his shoulder: Aunt, he guessed, preening herself that all her schooling had its effect in his pretty speech. Little did she know the hands balled behind his back were no gesture of humble submission, but a means of remembering! With each sentence safely formed, he extended a finger downward, readying himself to parrot the next.

“We trust not to fail your Lordship’s belief in Our wisdom.” The King twirled the end of his pointed auburn beard, light catching on a scattering of silvery threads. “Usher! Summon the Lord Protector’s herald. Let us have these accusations declared and rebutted. You will present your mother to Us, my Lord?”

“An honour, Sire.” In the Conqueror’s name, which way was he supposed to give her titles?

He sensed her inching forward, sinking into a delicate curtsy that spread her black satin skirts like wings. “May it please Your Majesty, I present Elizabetha of Greenglade, Dowager Lady of Etinsmere,” Drinian heard himself intone. From the corner of his eye he caught her encouraging smile.

“My Lady, you shall have just hearing of Us.” Nain stretched down from his perch, sparing her the need to crane for his proffered hand. “The memory of your kindness to my late sister, once your mistress and Queen, would demand no less - even had you not so eloquent an advocate as your son!”

“Your Majesty’s graciousness is our sole protection.” She took a pace back the instant the presentation was done, leaving him alone and feeling foolish, desperately trying not to shuffle his feet or stare. 

Drinian acknowledged he had never been a timid child. He had entertained Papa’s guests, even King Caspian himself, with riddles and poems from the day he learned to talk, and never known a moment’s shyness. Standing now in a room filled with curious, silent strangers, he understood at last why Caspian, Ninian and Katharina had sometimes run away to hide behind their nurses’ skirts. 

His mouth was dry. His stomach churned. He was horribly afraid he might be sick.

“The Lord Miraz’s herald!”

A great stirring swept the length of the Throne Room. Necks craned. Drinian rolled his eyes as far right as they would go, squinting to see what terrible creature Miraz had sent against him.

It took all his strength not to burst out laughing.

“Has he sent his court jester?” somebody asked a little too loudly from the crowd. His lips twitched.

He could not be blamed. Uncle Dar looked ready to burst; Aunt’s eyebrows were lost against the high line of her scraped-back dark hair. His gold-trimmed red tunic quartered with green, yolk-yellow hose encasing legs once clad in the sovereign’s black, Narnia’s colourful emissary looked better suited to rattling nonsense than declaiming the business of state, and by his hangdog expression he knew it.

“Master Herald.” King Nain’s greeting was icily correct. “We understand you are come on the authority of His Highness Miraz, styling himself Lord Protector of my late brother Caspian’s realm.”

The gaudy herald sucked in a huge breath, paused a moment, and began to declaim in a solemn bellow.

“Miraz, by the Declaration of the Great Council of the Realm; and by right lineal descent from His Majesty Caspian, son of Erimon, called The Conqueror, Lord Protector of the Realm of Narnia, to his right royal and honoured brother Nain, King of Archenland.”

A tiny muscle in Nain’s cheek twitched, tugging Drinian’s gut with a memory of Papa trying to control his rising temper. He let out the breath he hadn’t known he was holding. It was clearly all right to think the Protector insolent.

“We were not aware the Great Council of Lords had yet confirmed His Highness’ title,” said the King, easing back against the cushions of his throne. “Continue.”

“We most ardently beseech Your Majesty command the return to Our dominions of the Lady Elizabetha, presently fugitive from Our justice within your borders. This lady is suspected of both the slaughter of her lord, Our noble servant Tirian, and the cruel and unnatural killing of her infant daughter. Further, We urge Your Majesty to ensure the safe return to his own place of the lady’s captive son: His Grace Drinian, now Lord of Etinsmere in his father’s stead. Trusting Your Majesty’s sagacity and honour, We remit judgement on this matter.”

“What ground has your master for suspecting this lady of such monstrous crimes?” the King wondered when the murmuring of his courtiers had ceased. The herald swallowed visibly.

“Why, the manner of her flight, Sire, with my Lord her son as captive! What honest person would fly from her natural protectors, at night and with a child?”

“One, perhaps, that feared for her child’s safety? My Lord Drinian, We understand by your uncle’s report that your mother was absent from your home at the moment of the assault? But that you were present?”

“Yes, Sire.” He was surprised by the confidence ringing in his voice. “My grandmother Greenglade was believed mortally sick. All that household can affirm Mamma was within their walls when the assassins struck.”

“The word of a child held in his accused mother’s care cannot challenge that of a Prince – if I may speak boldly before Your Majesty!”

“You speak boldly indeed, Master Herald: especially for one who concedes this lady is accused by naught more reliable than mischievous bruit.” Nain’s comment was neutral, but something in the very quietness of the King’s manner made Drinian giddy. “The Lord Miraz must know that we of Archenland require visible proofs before we condemn the meanest of our subjects: and a nobleman, no matter what his age, has the right to be heard. My Lord Drinian, how old are you?”

“Nine next month, if it please Your Majesty,” he replied promptly. Nain sighed heavily.

“Of an age with myself, when this inheritance fell to me. I believe I was deemed grown enough to escape my nurse’s strings! These assassins – you saw them?”

“No, Sire, but I did hear their voices.”

“Brigands, Your Majesty. Even the Lord Tirian himself did concede in my master’s hearing that footpads sometimes roam the Northern provinces.”

“Not in armour to break into a great manor!” Drinian burst out, shrill indignation overwhelming even the censorious clucking of his aunt. “What brigand flees without stealing so much as a ring from his victim’s finger, Sire?”

“But there _was_ a ring taken!” cried the herald, lurching forward with hands outstretched, animated for the first time. “The Lord Solivar saw it! A large gold signet with a crest!”

Drinian delved into the front of his tunic to yank loose a thin black cord from which a golden object hung. “This ring?” he asked, widening his eyes as he had seen Caspian do when his nurse was especially cross. 

“Token of Your Lordship’s proper inheritance.” The indulgence of King Nain’s grin was tinged with respect. No longer tangled with tension Drinian stood straighter, meeting the monarch’s eye steadily. 

“My father would not have had this ring given into any other’s hand, Sire.” One of Aunt’s silken phrases pierced his brain and slipped like melted chocolate over his tongue. “Nor his heir to finer care than Your Majesty’s.”

“Well, well.” Kings expected flattery, he knew that, and though Papa despised the courtier’s wiles he had grudgingly confessed to his son their worth. Conscious of the approving smiles around the throne, Drinian could not resist smirking at his dejected countryman.

“Inform Our cousin Miraz, sir, that the Lord Drinian is under Our protection; and that Archenland will have no part in the persecution of his unhappy mother. Usher! Attend this gentleman’s wants and set him safe on his way to Narnia. Now my Lord, you have discharged your duties admirably. Tell me: do you pine for your old playmates?”

“Yes, Sire.” He didn’t want to think of Caspian, the trustiest of them all. Every time he summoned his image to mind the boy was surrounded by guards in Miraz’s livery, all grim faces and gaudy tunics. _Some things are worse than dishonourable exile, and being under the hands of Prince Mope and Princess Prune must surely be one of them!_

“You are of an age with my children. My Lord Hastin, will you call the Prince and his sister?”

Aunt actually sagged, her whole face lightening into a gratified smile. “Your Majesty is too generous,” she simpered, making a curtsy so low he expected her bottom to scrape the marble floor. King Nain waved airily.

“The boy answers well for his years my lady. I’ll wager he makes a mighty counsellor to his Prince one day, with such silvered eloquence so young! My scapegrace son may learn from so stout-stomached a companion. Ah, Corin! Anelia! You will show my Lord of Etinsmere our home?”

“Hullo!” Prince Corin crabbed his way through the ranks of bowing courtiers with all the grace of a badly wound-up toy, spindly limbs spiking at angles as odd as those made by his shock of carrot-coloured hair. “You’re from Narnia, my father says! I hope you’ll like Archenland well enough.”

“I have been made most welcome, Your Highness.” People were hiding sniggers behind their hands, and Drinian was sure King Nain winced. Looming over the Prince’s shoulder his twin, sleek and dark without a hair from its proper place, rolled her large brown eyes.

“We are happy to hear it,” she fluted, languidly extending her hand. Repressing the urge to mimic her exasperated gesture, Drinian made a performance of kissing it. 

From the corner of his eye he distinctly saw her father grin. “If you would care for a tour of the palace, my Lord, we shall be honoured to escort you.”

“The honour will be mine, Your Highness.” One determined to be empress of her father’s court; the other an amenable oddity. They would never be the allies in mischief their cousin in Narnia had been!


	10. Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> News travels slower in winter. When it's sure to be unwelcome, is that really such a bad thing?

The excitement of Anvard soon faded, its sharp emotions growing hazy about the edges: like the horrors he had left at Etinsmere, vivid only in the dreams which tormented his nights. Winter laid a heavy hand over much of Archenland, stopping travellers and slowing the arrival of news across her northern border. 

Drinian’s birthday slipped unremarked beyond the house, an occasion which had formerly been marked with fanfares at King Caspian’s court. Even among his nearest kin celebrations were so muted he half thought his family preferred to disregard the date. 

Mamma presented him with a small gold tablet ring marked with the Etinsmere signet that fit snugly onto his narrow finger; Aunt gruffly thrust forward a woollen cloak knitted in the dark blue of the family livery, with the same form of a ship picked out in gold thread on the collar; and Uncle, fidgeting and loud in the funereal silence of a snow-silenced house, bellowed a pledge to carry them all off to Barwell and a pleasure-cruise aboard his brigantine as soon as the weather allowed.

He meant well. Everyone did, but few were able to convey their kind intentions without stabbing their fingers straight into the jagged scars laced across his heart.

Uncle Dar was the nearest he had to a playmate, bounding like an enormous puppy to the door of the Small Parlour (fairly named, even he conceded) at the end of each day’s lessons waving the wooden cutlasses he had carved himself in readiness for mock battles along the Gallery’s length. While the women shivered under blankets through the evenings, Dar capered under leaden skies to play hide and seek or skid clumsily over frozen fishponds. For an hour between supper and bed duties were set aside and the masters of Etinsmere and Westerwood alike were given license to play.

Aunt Katharina sniffed; Mamma smiled. And secretly, Drinian wondered if having no children had allowed Uncle Dar to remain a child himself.

No word came from Narnia to greet the New Year. He tried not to let it upset him. With Miraz’s men patrolling the borderlands, none of the news to be expected from Greenglade would be good.

His mother tried to scold his pessimism when he ventured to express it, but she never quite succeeded. How could she, Drinian mused, with weeks becoming months, and Miraz confirmed unquestioned in his stolen honours?

*

Burrowed under his bedclothes at dead of night, the faint squeaking of a door quite failed to penetrate his mercifully dreamless slumbers. A slight shadow ghosted past the window, an arm extended. Shapely fingers curled around his shoulder, giving a gentle shake.

Drinian yelped, all four limbs flailing in wild defence against his assailant. Goggle-eyed and shaking, he snatched a pillow to parry the dagger thrust his fogged brain anticipated. “Hush, child, ‘tis only I!” the Lady Elizabetha hissed as she reeled backward. “Forgive me – were you having nightmares again?”

“N-no, Mamma.” She wore a thin wrap over her nightgown, he realised; her hair hung in loose waves over her shoulders, making her seem younger, childish herself in the dim starlight. “I – what’s wrong?”

“My brother’s messenger is here! Hurry, find a cloak, Lorian dare not linger if he’s to evade the patrols before daylight.”

Her excitement was contagious: and sufficient for her not even to notice his bare feet as they hurried the length of the corridor and down the main stair. Dar’s voice, blessedly loud amid the conspiratorial whispers of the disturbed household, beckoned them join him in the dark main parlour.

“We dare not light the lamps. Elizabetha, let me guide you to a chair. Well, Master – what’s your name again, fellow? What news of the rebellion?”

“Only that there _is_ no rebellion, m’Lord.” Leaves and twigs dripped from the Narnian’s garments, and Drinian could see Aunt regarding the mud-patch where he stood with growing anguish. “The Protector’s party gains strength by the hour. Rilian of Pond’s Valley declared for him two days ago – aye, and was rewarded with guardianship o’ Beruna for his trouble, the duchess there being an infant. There were a score of lords that spoke against the Protector at Great Council, but now… Bagroz of Herrings Path, Hofian, even my Lord’s own brother-in-law, the Lord Nairn (to the shame of my Lady, who vows never to set foot in his house again), they’re all gone to Miraz’s side.”

“And all for reward?” Dar snorted.

“The peace o’ the realm depends on it, they say.” Their visitor sneezed hugely. “Ah, thank ‘ee, m’Lord,” he added as Drinian offered the handkerchief from his own cloak’s pocket. “Spent too long lyin’ in a ditch to escape the soldiers: I’ll suffer for it soon enough! Narnia needs a quiet regency they say, that all’s well when the little Prince comes to his own. Aye, the same little Prince my master’s not seen these two months past! Hofian’s named his Master, with the old hag – beg pardon, _the Lady Prunaprismia_ – as overseer.”

“Ugh! Caspian will loathe that!”

“And my brother?” His mother did not rebuke the rude aside. Remembering her views on the lady, Drinian was hardly surprised. “He has not suffered for his part in our flight?”

“Miraz can accuse him o’ nothing, Ma’am, since nobody saw your Ladyship at Greenglade,” said the man who had lowered the gate on her arrival. “He’s kept at a distance, wi’ the Lords Bern and Restimar, Uvilas and Belisar… all those of the late King’s affinity that can’t be bought wi’ trifles.”

“Not bought, but cowed!” Dar had listened to his visitor’s recitation with temper visibly building, hopping from one foot to the other and banging his balled fists together. “A dozen or so of the realm’s greatest men, and not one dares lift a hand against the murderer of his King! Drinian my lad, learn by this: the best ally of wickedness is the damned weakness of _decency_. Tirian would have raised the hue and cry! Not one of these _honourable gentlemen_ dares venture his own position with truth! They sit on their hands, waiting for the commons to rise on their account.”

“Which is why my brother died.” Aunt’s voice would have sliced granite. “ _He_ would have begun the furore: demanded to see his master’s body; challenged Miraz at every turn… brave perhaps, but what did his courage win Narnia – or him?”

“An honourable name?” Elizabetha suggested, passing a thin hand across her head as if it ached. “Katharina, your brother died for being an honest man, and honesty is what tyrants fear most. If there were more of his stamp, Drinian would be established in all his rights by now.”

“There’s much talk, m’Lady.” Lorian bristled, bold enough to speak against a perceived slight to his master. 

“And what does talk achieve, save keep Miraz’s cronies on their guard?” muttered Dar.

“The Protector watches the good un’s like a hawk, Sir – nobody passes through the gates of Greenglade, or Glasswater, or any o’ the other great houses without him knowing. To raise revolt under such scrutiny, with no help from the common folk…”

“Perhaps the people would rise more readily if they saw their masters speaking?” 

“Aye, lad!” Uncle thumped him on the back, setting off a coughing fit that made Drinian’s chest burn and his eyes water. “Your father taught you well. By the Lion’s Grace you may yet make a counsellor to King Caspian the Tenth!”

His wife sniffed daintily into her sleeve. “Better he live peaceful at our court, Husband, safe from the villains and tricksters of Narnia!”

“Drinian will be needed at Etinsmere my dear, as your brother was, to complete your father’s business in restoring its great name.” Elizabetha offered a hand to her son, the gesture enough to quell the protest stinging his tongue. “Tirian would never have us consider the court of King Nain _ours_ , for all his goodness. _We_ will never lose hope of returning – will we?”

“Never, Mamma.” The prospect of lingering in the corridors of Anvard, unoccupied and pitied, an exile for ever, was beyond bearing. Every time it was mentioned his stomach lurched. Drinian was thankful to see that their visitor had begun to fidget, conscious of the lightening sky and the urgent need to be away. 

Mamma and Aunt, he knew, would sit discussing the dire news until breakfast time but he would be excused, and more than anything else he wanted to be left alone with his desolation. His nurse had often declared, when infant frustrations got best of him, that misery thrived on company.

He found that his much preferred to be left alone.


	11. Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Narnia's contagions reach Westerwood in more ways than one. And finally there's a glimmer of optimism for a very bored young exile.

Two days later he woke shivering, cloudy-eyed and with a thunderous headache. “You’ve a fever: you must stay in bed,” his mother purred, dabbing a cool cloth against his burning brow while Aunt despatched servants left and right in search of a physician. “Harmin has been sent away, but you must be _sensible_.”

He wanted to get up, but when he tried to lift the covers Drinian discovered his limbs were unwilling to oblige. “Feels heavy,” he rasped, swallowing against the blistered heat of his throat. Gently, Elizabetha held a glass to his lips. 

“You’re unused to sickness, and I know patience is foreign to you,” she said with a smile, “but unless you lie quiet and let yourself sleep, it _will_ take longer to recover.”

“I was never ill in Narnia. Sea air, that’s what Papa said.”

“Sea air, open windows and trees to climb,” she agreed, rubbing her forehead as if it ached. “Now: close you eyes and try to sleep. Either Aunt or I will be here.”

Cautious, he lifted a hand toward her. “I should prefer you,” he mumbled. 

“I know.” Soft lips brushed his glowing cheek. Biting her lip against the searing pain that fired through her head, the Lady Elizabetha stroked her son’s hot fingers until she was certain he slept. Then, on tiptoe, she crept from his room and returned, muffling her coughing against her sleeve, to lay down in her own.

*

“It must have been your brother’s man.” The whole household had been laid low with coughs, shivers and fevers for a month, and Aunt Katharina hated it. “Did you not hear how he sneezed?”

“I hope he is recovered as well as we are, Aunt,” Drinian piped up from the far end of the breakfast table, tucking into his second helping of toast and jam. “Mamma, if you’re finished, may I have your bacon?”

“Bacon and _jam?_ ” Shaking her head, she passed her plate the length of the table. “You may return to your lessons today: with an appetite like this, we can hardly tell Master Harmin you’re unwell!”

“Yes, Mamma.” He grimaced behind his aunt’s back. Elizabetha’s lips twitched. “Has Master Harmin arrived, Aunt?”

“No.” She steepled her long fingers, frowning at their neat nails. “And I must reprimand him before your lessons begin, Drinian: want of punctuality is reprehensible. A tutor especially ought to set a better example to a pupil of rank.”

“I can see him scuttling toward the house from here, my dear.” Dar’s greenish eyes twinkled. “And I fancy he anticipates your criticism – never knew the dull old snail could move so quickly! Look, he fairly skips along!”

The long-faced tutor was trembling too, Drinian realised when he was ushered into their presence, making every roll of parchment in the leather satchel hanging from his bony shoulder quiver. “My Ladies – my Lord Dar – my Lord Drinian, beg pardon for my lateness! I was delayed for want of ink from my merchant in Narnia: the border is closed on account of a man’s corpse, half rotting so they say, discovered yesterday.”

Drinian’s eye was caught by the quick movement of his mother’s hands flying up to snatch at her throat. “It could not be,” he said flatly. 

“Master – what’s the fellow’s name, Lorcan, Lorin?” Dar boomed, making his wife wince. “No, of course not, he’s safe at Greenglade! How did this unfortunate die, have you word?”

“None, my Lord; nor of his name, though for a certainty he was Narnian and of common stock. My Lord Drinian, pray finish your breakfast and hurry to the Small Parlour. We shall see what you remember of the succession of the Archenlandish Crown.”

“More than I shall need to,” he growled, sliding down from his chair. “If Your Graces will excuse me…”

“A moment, Nephew.” Silently cursing his rashness, Drinian turned with head bowed under his aunt’s stern tone. “I should like to know why you consider Master Harmin’s teaching of history so unsuitable.”

“Let the lad be, Katharina.” Was that a warning in Uncle’s words? “Of what use will knowing _our_ crown’s succession by rote be to a lord of another realm?”

“If he is to find himself an honourable place at our court, the boy must know its history. What use is his _Narnian_ knowledge here? Had _I_ acquired a proper knowledge of these affairs, why! I might have…”

“Drinian, attend to your studies at once.” 

He glanced toward his mother, relieved by her assenting nod. “Yes, Uncle,” he muttered, dashing past the startled tutor in his eagerness to escape the frosty blanket which had descended across the table. As he paused in the corridor, reminded just in time he was meant to follow Harmin into the classroom, he distinctly heard his uncle’s final rebuke.

“Don’t punish the boy for your own disappointments, Katharina. The Queen had as much place for a foreigner in her household as the court o’ King Nain will occupation for an exile! Best give the lad his head – Elizabetha, don’t be distressed, you know it only worsens your cough, and…”

“My Lord Drinian?” Harmin called, fixing him with a beady stare from the Small Parlour door. Drinian blushed, abashed for the second time in ten minutes at being caught out. “Might I remind your Lordship that a _gentleman_ does not listen at doors? Now – His present Majesty’s father was King Lune: how many of that name had ruled Archenland before him?”

*

Aunt was, he noticed, much less inclined to carp thereafter. His efforts were no longer criticised quite so sharply when at each week’s end Harmin’s grudging reports on a recalcitrant pupil’s achievements were presented. He was even allowed to loll in his seat with his boots propped on the hearth while listening to his relations’ observations.

“You struggle with mathematics, I see,” she remarked and involuntarily he stiffened. “Just as your father did! Harmin commends your diligence in the subject, which I suppose Tirian’s tutor was never known to do…”

“Fractions and calculations frustrated him,” Elizabetha commented, tucking her shawl in more closely. “Drinian, will you fetch me more wine?”

He sprang up and sloshed a little deep claret liquid into the fine-stemmed glass at her side. “Your throat again, Mamma?” he asked, intercepting the worried look exchanged between their companions. “Can Doctor Kol give you nothing to soothe it?”

“His medicines make me feel ill but don’t be alarmed when I’m stronger every day. Perhaps your father was right and we benefitted from the good sea air at Etinsmere.”

“Then we ought to ride to Barwell! Did I not promise an outing aboard the _Lady of Westerwood_?” Dar bounced on his seat, beaming at his nephew. “The weather looks to be set fair: coming in from the south, what winds there are will be so light she shan’t even roll, and we might pay respects at Anvard on the way. What says my Lord of Etinsmere?”

“I would like that, Sir.” Drinian’s heart leapt. “Mamma, can we?”

“You indulge us, Dar: and we are grateful.” She allowed him to kiss her hand, smiling over his grizzled head at the older woman. Katharina sighed. Drinian thought she even smiled.

“Very _well_ , I shall send to Harmin that his services are not required for a week,” she promised. “So long as _you_ , my Lord Former Admiral, will pledge yourself not to snort and scoff at every remark your successor tries to make, should we be forced to endure him! I _know_ the Lord Gurin never went to sea in his life but his wife _is_ His Majesty’s distant cousin, and King Nain is very fond of her.”

“As well for the raddled hag someone is!” Dar chortled at his own witticism. Drinian bit hard against the inside of his cheek to stop himself laughing too. The more he saw of his aunt’s marriage, the better it seemed he understood its outwardly inexplicable success.


	12. Eleven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a courtesy call to be paid on the way to the sea. Anvard really is a very different court from the one Drinian knew in Narnia...

The gaily-coloured pennants that had flown from the turrets of Anvard on their first visit were noticeably absent at their second. King Nain, frowning over a sheaf of papers, hurried to greet them at the gates, a gaggle of councillors tripping on their grey and dull brown robes at his heels. “By your faces I gather you left Westerwood before my messengers could find you,” he said even before making his courtliest bow to the ladies. “Pray forgive my filthy hands – we were inspecting the Royal stable, lest Archenland be pulled into this mad adventure of the Protector’s!”

“Adventure, Sire?” King Caspian would not have shouted matters of state across the drawbridge, Drinian knew: nor be seen by strangers in a grubby jerkin with a hole at the cuff. 

There again, even when invited, he would have been reluctant to address that king - even with all the might of Etinsmere at his back!

“Narnia goes to war with the Giants of the Wild Lands.” Nain caught the bridle of the boy’s mount himself, fondling the frisky grey’s muzzle while grooms came running. “They crossed Ettinsmoor in numbers – so my Lord Protector’s missive claims – to harass the province of Etinsmere and the lands of the Passarids. Nay, your lands were not harmed: a small force mustered of its own will to defy them, but the kingdom’s on a war footing with the Lords Terian and Glozelle placed in command. How many centuries has it been since the Giants ventured from their own territories?”

“More than three, Sire.” Drinian was careful not to catch his aunt’s eye, for however slender his knowledge of the Archenlandish Royal line, he knew the history of his own lands and blood well enough. “The Lord Sarian led the Army of the North.”

“Your ancestor? By the Mane of Aslan, I wish my son knew his lineage so well! Come, he and the Princess will be delighted to see a nobleman of their own age!”

In other words, Drinian considered, he wanted to discuss the dire news of Narnia with grown-ups. He trailed into the castle at the rear of their group, straining his ears for the odd phrase which might make sense. Giants menacing Etinsmere, and Glozelle of all men despatched to her defence! 

He remembered his father’s mocking commentary on that gentleman’s performance at one of the few tournaments King Caspian had sanctioned, when the men of what he now knew as Miraz’s party had strutted against those of the King. _Wields the broadsword like a housemaid’s mop! Terian will have his head, if the Conqueror’s luck’s on our side!_

Papa had not been good at _murmuring_. Drinian had no doubt the unfortunate warrior had caught the words. 

And now he would march beside his opponent of that summer’s day into real combat. Despite the cloying warmth of midday, Drinian felt cold to his deepest core. If they were to fail, Etinsmere – _his_ Etinsmere – would smart for it and he, far away and still too young to attend even theoretical councils of war, could do nothing about it.

*

“Hullo, Lord Drinian!” Prince Corin capered down the stairs from the secluded Prince’s Apartments, waving merrily. “I say! Father tells me Narnia is at war with the _Giants_ , of all the odd things! I should like to go to war.”

“Forgive my brother, my Lord.” Her lips pursed, Princess Anelia stepped daintily in her twin’s wake, swaying backward at every second pace to evade his loosely flailing arm. “Corin _please_ don’t _thrash about_ so! Remember how angry Father was when you knocked _The Deeds Of King Ram_ from the Entrance Chamber wall!”

“ _I_ didn’t know it had been taken down for cleaning and not hooked back properly.” Corin stuck out his bottom lip. “Father’s very proud of his tapestries you see, Lord Drinian – and I _am_ confounded clumsy.”

“Father prefers you _not_ to use such terms,” the Princess reminded him, folding her hands in such a way all the rings on her fingers caught the light and sent rainbows dancing across the floor. 

Drinian found himself liking the Prince a great deal. Anyone who could restrain himself from accidentally smacking such an aggravating sister with a wayward arm was deserving, in his opinion, of the grandest crown.

“You shan’t deny I _am_ an oaf, mind! We’ve tea and biscuits in the nursery – will you share them?”

“Your Highness is very kind.” His stomach grumbled its pleasure in the offer. Cocking a brow Anelia’s way, he patted it. “My apologies, Madam.”

“Accepted, my Lord. You see, Corin, _that_ is what Papa means when he speaks of _mannerly behaviour_.”

“My sister’s five minutes older than I,” Corin hissed, directing their guest up the stairs with an amiable jab of the finger. “She thinks it gives her the right to tell me what to do.”

“Only to ask you, behave as a prince ought.” Twisting to glare over her shoulder, Anelia never noticed the toe planted on her hem; lost her footing and stumbled, flopping like a glittering doll onto the top step. “Ow! I suppose you think that funny Corin, you wretch!”

“Not at all, _most_ distressing.” The two boys were careful to avoid each other’s eyes as Corin hauled his pink-faced sister upright. “Father always says a _lady_ ought to be sure to hold up her gown on the stairs; she might do herself a nasty injury, he says. Did you know my aunt, by the way? She was Queen of Narnia, Father’s sister you know.”

“She was always kind to me.”

“Papa says I resemble her.” Anelia took the one single chair in the room, leaving the boys to occupy a narrow unpadded bench. “And that she was a great beauty.”

“So she was held in Narnia, Your Highness.” She offered the biscuit tray to him and smirked at her brother when he selected one of the jam and cream circles, biting into it with crumb-scattering relish. “But she died when I was five; too young to judge for myself.”

“You know our Cousin Caspian too,” Corin observed, knocking the tray clean off the table in his animation. “Oops! No, don’t call for the maid, I shall clear the mess.”

He dropped onto his knees and thrust his head under the table. “Gosh, they do break easily biscuits, don’t they?” he yelled, scrabbling like an agitated rabbit. “I’ve got the better part – ow!”

As he emerged rubbing his crown, his two companions found themselves exchanging unabashedly gleeful grins. “You see,” Anelia confided, leaning close as if she were sharing a state secret. “My brother really _is_ the most confounded oaf in the kingdom!”


	13. Twelve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At last Archenland provides a genuine pleasure for her unwilling guest. Even the captain of the world's most famous vessel had to start somewhere...

The port of Barwell proved a disappointing place: a sprawling village of taverns, shacks and fishmongers’ shops sheltered half a league in from the mouth of the Winding Arrow River. Small fishing smacks, brigs and barques clustered along a stone-built quay where hawkers and pedlars clamoured for the attention of brawny seamen and gaudily dressed women. Drinian had no need to glance at his aunt’s severe expression to guess her disapproval. 

Still, the air struck his nostrils with a faintly salt tang and a large galleon inched with the current toward an anchorage beyond the town itself, her sails set and curving to the wind. “The flagship, _Tiger_ ,” Dar identified. “Out for a cruise against pirates I fancy. We turn south here, toward her mooring. I may not be admiral but I’ve some privileges still, and as respectable a residence as this paltry place can boast! Close your eyes as we approach the end o’ the wharf, Elizabetha m’dear: my wife will tell you, ‘tis a den of iniquity and vice - naught but what you expect with rough sailors filling the town. Drinian, you see the mast rising three points off the bow? _That_ is the _Lady of Westerwood_. Tidier, you think, than most o’ the flotsam which fills the harbour?”

“She looks weatherly, Sir.” His attention had been seized by a knot of ragged fellows with long hair and swollen eyes hunkered down close to the brigantine’s mooring, half of them with chains around their ankles. Two burly individuals with tattoos down their arms stood behind them, swords drawn. “Uncle – who are those men?”

His voice, high and childish, carried clearly on the still air. Dar cleared his throat and Drinian was conscious of his mother biting her lip. “Villains, my boy; cutpurses and drunkards for the most part, swept up for useful service by the press.”

Every muscle contracted. “The press-gang?” he repeated. “Papa said…”

“Your father had grand ideas for his fleet,” Dar said gently. “Worthy ones I know, but the plain truth is a ship cannot sail on volunteers alone. They may be the worst dregs o’ the taverns but those wretches will keep the King’s vessels afloat – aye, and do an honest day’s work, which’ll be a first for most of ‘em.”

Their journey took them within a few feet of the huddled prisoners. Drinian eyed them warily, half expecting one to leap up and snatch the gold signet that glinted on his finger: but he quickly realised they had not the spirit left to assault an old woman, still less a boy surrounded by guardians. They barely even glanced his way: those who could bestir themselves from studying the cold stone on which they sat seemed capable only of casting fearful glance to the gangplank of a sprightly fresh-painted schooner, the _Vixen_. 

On her maindeck a tall man swaggered, a telescope tucked under his arm. “Captain Marin!” Dar bellowed cheerfully. “A fine time your Boson will have, thrashing these surly blackguards into seamen! Are you in dock tomorrow?”

“Aye, my Lord, and right glad I’ll be to pipe you aboard.” Deepset grey eyes swept the remainder of Dar’s little group. “M’Lady. Trust you’re in good health?”

“I thank you, Captain. Allow me to correct my husband’s lapse in manners – not for the first time! My sister and nephew of Etinsmere - Captain Marin.”

“I’ll bring the lad aboard tomorrow, with your permission, Marin.” Dar grinned hugely, not a whit abashed by the gentle rebuke. “His late father was a fine sailor; this one may teach us all a trick one day!”

“Permission granted with pleasure, Sir.” Drinian frowned, scanning the words for condescension and found none. “Boson! Get those damn – _blessed_ lubbers on board, would you have ‘em clutter the quay all day? Forgive me, m’lords – ladies. Stowing the rogues aboard is always the most painful of harbour duties.”

“By the Lion’s Mane, you have my sympathy, Marin!” Only one of the captives (Drinian could think of them in no other way) had the spirit to glare as the speaker spurred his stallion into a trot and away.

*

He saw nothing of Captain Marin’s new crewmen while touring the man’s graceful schooner at his uncle’s heels the next morning, and the men who were about decks were all cheerful, busy fellows with bronzed faces and teeth stained yellow by tobacco. “By the Lion’s Tail, you have her in fine fettle, Marin! _Vixen_ is one of the older ladies o’ the fleet, Drinian, not that you’d know from the condition of her.” Dar ran a loving hand along the fo’c’sle rail as he admired the unpatched sail that flapped idly above. “You’re preparing for a cruise, I see. What destination has the foo – beg pardon, _my Lord Admiral Gurin_ , – in mind for you?”

“Galma, my Lord.” Marin was not, Drinian decided, as old as he had thought from shore level. Though he was grey-haired, his deeply tanned brow creased with lines, the wiry seamen could hardly be past forty. “‘Tis a pity, young master, all these years of howling wind in my ears have hurt my hearing: I’d swear his Lordship was about to pay my Lord Admiral a compliment! Yes, Lor? One o’ the new men making difficulties, is he? By the Lion, what manner of mate is it must call his captain for every small thing? If your Lordships will excuse me.”

“Be away, you fretful old hen!” Laughing, Dar shooed the other man away. “Lor has served his captain eight years at least, and a good captain never damns his officers in company unless he has full faith in ‘em. Remember that.”

“Yes, Uncle.” Drinian cocked his head, squinting against the flashing glare of sunlight off the polished brass rails. “Sir – why do you and the Captain swear by the Lion?”

“Why, _The_ Lion of course – Aslan.” With a tug of the sleeve, Dar guided his nephew to a low bench set square at the bow beneath the carved fox’s head at the prow. “You Telmarines of Narnia have your Conqueror – a pile o’ crumbling bones in a dusty vault to swear by. We – well, if the Great Lion ever _did_ live (and that I doubt!), it was more than a thousand years ago, but what’s better? A mythic beast that was said to hold rule over all the Northern world, or a mortal man that made his dynasty in a battle he might easily have lost?”

Aslan. The name had been whispered in the stories Caspian’s nurse sometimes told: fairy tales, she said, of how Narnia used to be. A magnificent Lion, the Highest of High Kings that held sway over the Narnia of Dwarves and Fauns and Beasts who could talk like men. 

Well, _Fauns_ were not fairy tales: he had seen that much himself. Papa had known it too, or why would he have been so cross when Drinian reported seeing one?

“Besides,” Uncle was saying, stroking his grizzled beard. “A man must be allowed to tease his wife after twenty years of marriage! Watch your aunt shudder when I invoke the name o’ the ancient deity! And on the word of an Etinsmere – would you not do the same in my boots?”

“Yes, Sir.” Startled into complete frankness Drinian joined in his uncle’s laughter oblivious to the curious stares they earned. “Is that your boson on the harbour wall?”

“Eh? You’ve a good eye to make out that wizened old rogue from such a distance. You, sailor! Fetch me a glass, my sight’s not so sharp as my nephew’s!”

“Aye, Sir.” Grinning broadly, a shaggy-haired fellow with a forked black beard lunged over with a telescope to slap into Dar’s outstretched palm. “Cap’n Marin sends word that Master Lune’s on the quayside by the way: says the brig’s fit to sail whenever Your Lordship gives word.”

“Ah. As I say, the boy has – by the Lion’s Mane, Master Carin! Of all the contemptible old wretches, _is_ it you? The beard….”

“Aye, m’Lord.” The seaman allowed himself to be thoroughly pounded on the back. Dar chortled.

“This rogue, Drinian, was aboard the last ship I ever commanded for His Majesty – the _Princess Amaria_ , named for your old playmate Caspian’s mother. Came aboard with the press gang and stayed of his own choice…”

“And to dodge my debts!” Carin leaked the words from the corner of his mouth. Drinian laughed. 

“Made an _almost_ honest fellow of you, and the finest topman in the King’s fleet. Got up the ratlines faster than a rabbit chased by two stoats, if I recall! You’ll want to climb to the fighting top aboard the _Westerwood_ I suppose, Drinian?”

It took two attempts for him to force out the breathless words. “Yes please!”

“Thought you might: don’t dare tell your aunt I gave it sanction!” Still pumping his old shipmate’s hand, Dar ambled after the capering boy to the rope ladder case over the port side. Close by the _Lady of Westerwood_ bobbed eagerly at her anchorage, black dots scurrying about her decks as the men made final preparations to cast off. It was all Drinian could do to keep himself for whooping for joy.

*

He was given freedom to dash from stem to stern of his uncle’s smart brigantine: and if the seamen who answered his garbled questions also kept discreet watch on his movements Drinian did not see it. For the first time in months he knew the gentle roll of water beneath a ship’s stout keel, and when that water changed from the sluggish ebb of the Winding Arrow to the livelier kick and skip of open sea he felt the blood in his veins rise to match its tempo. With every gulp of fragrant air he took he felt stronger, happier. “I must have missed the sea even more than I realised,” he murmured.

“Very likely.” Dar patted him on the shoulder, surprisingly gentle. Faint colour stained Drinian’s high cheekbones. “No need to be embarrassed: I know the air’s stale about Westerwood, however I love the old place! Will you take the wheel now we’re clear of the archipelago? Sartin, step aside and give my nephew his head. Steer nor’-nor’ west, Drinian, two points to larboard.”

“Aye, Sir!” Jubilant, he seized the spokes of the great wheel, caressing the worn timber as he guided the ship serenely onto her new heading. Dar grunted, exchanging a smug look with his wire-haired, hunchbacked old sea captain. 

“As I said: he has the knack,” he growled, watching as Drinian swayed in harmony with his vessel’s motion. “Fetch up your sextant, let’s see if we can’t drum angles and fractions into my Lord of Etinsmere’s head better than that prim old woman of a tutor does! You’re a practical fellow I fancy, quicker to _do_ than to learn by rote. Take her another point to larboard now! I _think_ I saw dolphins breaking the surface ahead.”

*

The _Lady of Westerwood_ coasted back to her mooring as the sun drowned, a glorious orange ball staining the restless sea, with Drinian proudly hanging over the landward bow clutching a stained rope as broad as his wrist. His hair was wildly blown and thick with salt; brine tasted tart in the back of his throat; but his eyes were sparkling and as he waved to her on the quayside the Lady Elizabetha’s tired dark eyes welled with happy tears.

“Dar is too kind to us, Katharina,” she whispered, fumbling to find her sister-in-law’s gloved hand. “This expedition will have raised Drinian’s spirits more than a thousand kind words from King Nain! Be careful, child! Dar, what have you allowed my son to do?”

“What ever the lad wished, m’dear!” Dar looked on gleefully as Drinian launched himself onto the quay, dragging the rope in his wake to wind around a stout iron mooring post. The brig’s anchor splashed away and with a gentle thud the vessel came to rest at the precise moment her gangplank crashed down. “I never saw a more natural sailor in my life! Promise me he’ll have his way and a berth in His Majesty’s fleet before his twelfth year!”

“Much too young!” his wife protested. Dusting off his stinging hands, Drinian raised a pathetic face to his mother.

“But Mamma, you _know_ Papa always said…” he wailed. “Captain Sartin says he’ll stand my sponsor – with Uncle of course. And I should die of boredom doing _nothing_ at court.”

His aunt pursed narrow lips but his mother merely nodded, dragging her green mantle tighter against the freshening breeze. “If the King gives assent, you may join his fleet. Nay, Katharina! You know better than any of us that a Narnian, no matter how grand his rank, will find no occupation among the councillors of Archenland! Now hurry, dinner will be waiting! We’ll ride for Westerwood tomorrow? If my Lord of Etinsmere is to end his schooling so soon, he’d best to apply himself to it now!”

“Yes, Mamma.” Even Harmin’s snuffling lectures could be borne with the praise of Uncle’s crew ringing in his ears. Drinian vaulted into the saddle, humming the merry tune of a barely-understood seaman’s song under his breath as he followed the grown-ups north toward the house.

*

They skirted Anvard on the return journey, forced to make a call on Dar’s cousin Lady Marna and her husband at their pokey manor of Millstream. They reached home on the fourth day to find a hatchet-faced soldier, his tunic emblazoned with the crowned lily of King Nain pacing the oak panelled hall to greet them.

He made no bows: barely gave time for the ladies to remove their outdoor garments before breaking into speech. “I’m sent by His Majesty with news of Narnia’s war for my Lord of Etinsmere.”

Drinian had to be pushed forward, not terribly discreetly, by his aunt. “His Majesty is generous to remember me,” he ventured, trying to ignore the indulgent smiles which graced every grown-up face. “Although I see the news you bring is bad.”

“Aye, m’Lord.” _Ah!_ The man was shocked to find himself addressing a child. Drinian stretched to his full height, lifting his chin so high his neck ached. “The Lord Terian is reported struck down; his brothers Tolian and Tamarin command Narnia's force in his stead. And the body found on the slopes of Mount Pire last month is identified as a man of Greenglade named Lorian. Rumours fly that he must have been returning from Westerwood when he was struck down from behind.”

“By the Lion, Miraz’s soldiers do their work as their master does,” Drinian yelped, as startled as two of his companions were scandalised by the ease with which the foreign epithet rolled from his tongue. “In the dark and from the rear! Mamma, are you ill?”

“No, no.” She sagged against Dar’s proffered shoulder, her eyes closed. “My poor brother! He were best not to send to us again.”

“Dar, see my sister to her chambers; I’ll fetch you some wine, Elizabetha, you do look very pale! Drinian – see this good fellow on his way.” 

“Yes, Aunt.” She was shaken too, he realised, never doubting he would pay for his slip of the tongue after. Perhaps the head of the House of Etinsmere was too grand a creature to be scolded before servants.

It was the one crumb of solace to be drawn from a miserable night.


	14. Thirteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Uncle Dar, he has a staunch ally. As events speed up in Narnia, it seems Drinian needs all that he can find...

What little intelligence seeped across the border as the year progressed did nothing to raise the spirits of the Westerwood household. Lord Tolian was head of the Passarid clan less than a month before falling in a Giant assault against his encampment on the edge of Ettinsmoor. A proclamation was issued by the Protector’s Council refuting suggestions that the Lord Glozelle had been negligent in mounting guards about the perimeter. 

“I suppose that means he _was_ ,” Drinian commented when a worn copy of the document made its way to his schoolroom by way of a kindly groom. “And most likely with Miraz’s instruction!”

“A gentleman must guard himself against becoming _cynical_ , my Lord.”

“And be known as a witless fool, Master?”

Harmin’s greyish lips puckered into an unattractive pout. “And be known as a man of _good nature_ , Sir. Now, we ought to attend to your most recent attempt to ruin the noble science of arithmetic. Would your Lordship care to explain how you arrived at _these_ extraordinary answers to the basic mathematical puzzles I presented last week?”

“Ah.” It would probably be taken ill if he answered honestly that, getting into a hopeless muddle with his calculations, Drinian had simply guessed. Harmin tutted.

“If Your Grace would spend less time drawing _boats_ in the margins of your books and more time attending to my instructions, we should not still be struggling to master these formulae.” The old man’s voice rose an octave, then another, until it rang high as his student’s own fine treble. A lusty bass chortle echoed through the open doorway.

“Practical experience, that’s what the lad needs more than your twittering theory, man!” Dar bellowed, thrusting his battered sextant box into the bare room. “Give me two evenings gazing at the stars, taking sights and measurements, and he’ll never be defeated by an angle again. What say you, Drinian? Astronomy’s a nobleman’s art, eh?”

*

Dar was as good as his word. A few nights later, when the stars shone brilliantly, Drinian clambered from his bed at midnight, dressed warmly and trotted after his uncle through the attics and out onto a platform built around the main chimney stack. The scratched box containing Dar’s sextant and telescope lay waiting for them, already opened. “Help me unpack ‘em, but be gentle: I’ve had this sextant since my very first day at sea. Now, identify the constellation of Aris for me.”

Drinian chewed his bottom lip, trying not to squint as he surveyed the magical twinkling blanket above. “There,” he said, his hand wavering in an uncertain point. “Two points south-east, with Bilaris at its head.”

“Now, take a sight from Bilaris as you would the sun at midday. Elbow down a touch, lad!”

 _That_ was easy, and by his companion’s grin Drinian gathered he had performed the task successfully. Dar chalked the figures he called onto a roof tile, hissing instructions while the boy wrestled with a delicate instrument and the strain of mental calculation. “Harmin ought to concentrate on your subtraction,” he muttered at length. “See? You said eight, not seven, and _that_ puts us four leagues north of where we know ourselves to be! Take another sight – swing south and use Marilis as your guide this time. And for the love o’ the Lion stop _fidgeting_ \- unless you’d have us both fall into your aunt’s thrice-benighted rosebeds!”

At the second attempt he calculated their latitude to perfection, winning a slap on the back that made him yelp and grab the chimney pot in fright. “These damned tutors are all the same, y’see,” Dar grumbled, tenderly packing away his treasured tool. “Spout principles and formulae and never show a man their uses! What star are you searching for, by the bye?”

“The constellation of the Great Swan.” It had been the most brilliant in Etinsmere’s skies and to identify it might, Drinian considered, make _home_ feel less distant. “It ought to be _there_ , but I daresay it looks different from such a southerly position.”

A plump paw caught his wrist, guiding the telescope around. “There, see! And don’t fret: for all your aunt’s plans, you’ll be Master of Etinsmere, not a mannerly dolt at Anvard, one day. Miraz will fall. The Narnians can’t be cowed forever.”

His eyelids prickled painfully but Drinian was determined not to cry. “We’ll have news in a week or so,” the old man told him kindly. “The _Lady of Westerwood_ set sail for the north yesterday, and Sartin has orders to take his cargo to Beruna and gather all the intelligence he may. Your mother feared you’d demand to sail aboard her, if you knew what we were plotting.”

“No, Uncle.” He lowered the glass, forcing a tremulous smile. “To be so near Narnia and not go ashore… I couldn’t bear that. Captain Sartin is in no danger though? Miraz may know the brig as yours.”

“Sartin’s a shrewd fellow, and I was exporting wine to Narnia before Caspian the Ninth succeeded to his father’s throne," Dar reminded him. "Who knows? He may even hear tell of your friend the Prince! The Royal household’s supplied from Beruna market, he’s sure to find its servants gossiping in the taverns. Now, help me pack these things away and hurry back to your bed. Your aunt will expect you bright and attentive at breakfast, if we’re to continue these late lessons.”

“Yes, Sir.” Though his hand quivered, Drinian lifted it to his brow in a smart salute. Dar beamed. 

“Make a sailor you yet,” he murmured fondly as the boy vaulted inside, swinging on the stout roof beam. “By the Lion’s Mane, you’re fairly sprouting up, Drinian! You’ll need a new mount as well as new clothes before next we visit Anvard! Either your arms have got longer, or your shirts have shrunk!”

*

For two weeks it seemed the household held its breath. As daylight hours lengthened Drinian escaped his studies more often, loitering before dinnertime out of doors: idly making ankle-traps in the wheat fields; or plucking the heads off a myriad of wild flowers on the approach to Westerwood, his ears permanently pricked for the shuddering _thump-thump_ of racing hooves. He was irritable with his tutor and impatient with his dancing master. When Aunt Katharina scolded he was insolent to her as well, and swiftly despatched to spend a frustrated evening staring out from his chambers.

At last, as he returned from a solitary ride aboard his uncle’s mildest gelding, he spied a strange chestnut cob being rubbed down in the stable yard. “You’re wanted in the parlour, m’Lord!” plump, cherubic Ostin the horse master called across the beast’s sturdy back. “Cap’n’s come! Leave Standard there to me – I’ll tend him, master wants you directly.”

His belly clenched. Now the moment was come he found he was no longer so desperate for news of home, but it could not be avoided. Drinian squared his shoulders, gave his shirt sleeves a vicious tug down to cover bony wrists and marched in through the servants’ door to the gloom of the quiet house.

“Ah, Drinian!” Uncle was booming, which ought to have been a good sign, but when the loud voice was combined with a mottled complexion and a lowering scowl, might also mean Dar’s temper ran dangerously close to breaking. “Fetch your mother a glass of water – she’ll not take rum, though it’s better after a bad fright. Elizabetha you shan't blame yourself. Your brother will not.”

“Husband. Perhaps you might allow our guest to convey his news to my nephew?” 

Though she would never be called beautiful there was something striking about the Lady of Westerwood at that moment, standing detached from her companions to stare through the wide-open window. Fighting off the urge to run Drinian sloshed water into two glasses on a silver tray at the fireside, offering one to his aunt before crumpling to his knees beside his mother’s chair. “Is my uncle unwell?” he ventured.

“Under guard.” Though her dark eyes shone with moisture Elizabetha formed the words steadily. “With his old friend Erimon, the Warden of the Southern Marches. Your uncle is charged with _treasonable utterance_ ; plotting within Narnia and beyond against the Protector’s government.”

Everything froze around him. The ticking of a clock thrummed like thunder through his brain. “Arrested?” he whispered, hearing his own voice from a great distance. “Uncle?”

Reluctantly he glanced to the newcomer. “’S true, m’Lord,” Sartin, still shaking the road’s dust from his waves of grey hair, affirmed. “Taken last week both of ‘em, and a dozen of their household fellows too. Solivar, Lord o’ the Lantern Waste, is appointed to investigate; this I had from one of his own affinity. Matters arising from the death o’ one Lorian, he said. Suspected of crossing out o’ Narnia to further a conspiracy against the Lord Protector.”

“Because of us.” As time began to move again Drinian felt the room lurch and had to grip his mother’s knees, swallowing against the bile burning his throat. “Because he helped us. What – what will happen to him?”

“Treason is a capital crime.” A single drop of blood formed on the Lady Elizabetha’s swollen lower lip, a livid splash of colour on a deathly white ground. “If Miraz can contrive enough evidence, he will die.”

“Like the King and Papa.” Careful, still expecting the floor to ascend against him, Drinian rose, clasping both hands behind his back lest anyone should see how they trembled. “Do people not _question_? Can nobody _see_ – Argoz, Rhoop and Belisar, they’re all kin to Erimon, can they do _nothing_?”

“The first that raises his hand against Miraz will take the hardest fall.” Uncle Dar could stay still no longer, striding across the chamber and back, the familiar slight roll of his gait turned into a pronounced sway as he increased his pace. “I daresay Arlian grumbled against the usurper – wager they all do!”

“But his connection with us brings him that party’s especial contempt.” Elizabetha extended her hand to him and Drinian grasped it, terrified by the realisation that Mamma reached out for _his_ support. “I ought never to have gone to him!”

“Where else is a sister to turn, if not to her brother?” The distance fell away. Suddenly Aunt was a part of their dejected company again, crossing the parlour to stroke the younger woman’s tumble of curls. “The Passarids are leaderless – Tamarin may be a good soldier, but he has a weak mind; Arlian and Erimon arrested. Pity the nobles of Narnia that have no connections beyond the realm to run to! Miraz will ruin them all.”

“The Passarids?” Drinian snatched at the name like a drowning man at a rope. “Is there more news of the war?”

“The north country’s unharmed, m’Lord,” Sartin promised, trying not to smirk as the boy’s pinched features relaxed a touch. “But the son o’ the Lord Tolian – barely out of the classroom, so I hear –was killed inside a week of his sire. There’s only one brother left now, and an infant girl – Mallica or some such – under the protection of Lord Tamarin, head of the House now the Lords Terian and Tolian are gone.”

“The poor child! She cannot be two years old!” Mamma of course would think of that. 

Aunt’s concerns, Drinian admitted without shame, chimed better with his own. “Who will dare speak against Miraz now?” she wondered, twisting her long fingers on each word she spoke. “Terian or Tolian might have been goaded – the Passarids were always quarrelsome. Greenglade could have been provoked. Who among the late King’s party is left that dares raise rebellion?”

“None of them,” Drinian told her flatly. His mother sighed, pressing his fingers with a force he had not guessed she might possess.

“My Lord of Etinsmere is right, Katharina,” she said, using his title, Drinian guessed, to forestall any argument. “Miraz has Narnia by the neck, and my brother’s disgrace will only tighten his grip. Captain Sartin, we are indebted to you for troubles taken. You _will_ stay for dinner? Any news, even ill, is better than ignorant silence. You remember, Drinian, how your father always maintained it?”


	15. Fourteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's another summons to Anvard, and that can't be good news. It is, however, never less than informative...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The names used for the Narnian nobility throughout are drawn from Cornelius' brief history lesson during Prince Caspian; the relationships and geographical placements are my own inventions.

Summer crawled across the fields around Westerwood, ripening the wheat to gold and bringing Aunt’s massed roses into aromatic bloom. The whole house seemed to reek of their sweetness, making Drinian’s throat sting and his mother's eyes water continually. From Narnia, they heard nothing.

“No surprise, my boy!” His uncle bawled when he ventured to protest the lack of reliable news. “The King’s sent his men to patrol the border. Not even a mouse could cross the pass without his knowledge, and we’re summoned to Anvard with all speed to hear his reasons. We’ve a tailor coming this afternoon to fit your Lordship for a suit o’ clothes that shan’t display your fine ankles to the whole court, and Ostin will accompany us to market tomorrow: you’re too tall for that damned pony of your cousin’s now.”

“But Sir, we cannot pay…”

Dar snorted. “No nephew of mine will arrive at Anvard mounted ill, lad!” he declared. “Elizabetha the boy’s grown old before his time, fretting about bills and debts!”

His mother ruffled his glossy hair, smiling though her eyes were shiny. “His father’s teaching: a man of rank does not place himself in debt! Perhaps your barber might trim some order to this wild mass too, Dar? The Master of Etinsmere must look his best at our host’s court.”

Though he groaned as she expected, Drinian was secretly not displeased by the prospect of being primped and fussed about. A visit to Anvard would at least break the tedium of lessons, quiet dinners and solitary ambles around the confines Westerwood!

*

“Hull – I mean, Greetings, my Lord of Etinsmere – my Lord of Westerwood.” Prince Corin stood at the gates of Anvard robed in a regal shade of scarlet that clashed most unfortunately with his vibrant, unusually well-combed hair. “My Lady Westerwood – my Lady Dowager. Be so – um, is it _good_ or _kind_ , Lord Barsin?”

“It makes no odds, Your Highness,” the elderly Chamberlain in his shiny blue tunic flushed and tried to shuffle back, making himself invisible in a scrum of sniggering attendants. Drinian thought it lucky Corin could remain so happily oblivious to the effect he had on his future subjects. 

“Oh, I thought it might! Very well, then pray be so _kind_ as to follow me to His Majesty’s Chamber of Audience.”

“No cause for alarm,” Dar whispered hotly against his nephew’s ear, giving a discreet push to set him into motion. “The King’s determined to show Narnia he does her exiles honour, and no charge against your kin will change it! Head up, and don’t _bumble about_ as the Prince does!”

The corridors and stairways were crowded with courtiers in sparkling finery. Drinian shrank into his new dark blue velvet doublet, feeling painfully plain with his lack of gold and silver thread and only the cut-down Etinsmere signet he twisted around his finger for adornment. The King meant well, he told himself firmly, showing Archenland as well as Miraz that His Grace of Etinsmere was no mere object of pity. It was only unfortunate that he did so in a way that made perfectly plain how much he _did_ pity him. 

Kings, his father had once remarked, did not have to be sensitive. They had only to be right. 

“My Lords and Ladies all.” Nain did them the notable honour of leaving his dais at their entrance, with Corin dashing to snatch up the end of his cloak and Anelia sliding from the melee to support his arm. “We are honoured by your coming.”

“Your Majesty is more generous than we poor exiles deserve.” From the Princess he earned an encouraging smile that bolstered him more than he quite liked. 

“Our generosity you may doubt, when you hear our news of your homeland.” Trusting his children to guide the rest of the group, Nain personally escorted the boy to a window seat. “My Lady of Etinsmere, pray sit. Word reached Anvard yesterday of still further disaster for Narnia. The Lords Belisar and Uvilas are dead, struck down by wayward arrows while hunting with the Lord Protector’s party. Prince Miraz’s government is greatly _afflicted_ , losing so many of the great noblemen of the realm in so little time.”

“No wonder the war goes badly,” Drinian grated, fighting off the urge to cry out against the awful insight slicing him. “Our archers can’t bring down a Giant in open moorland, yet hit two o’ their own in a thicket!”

“Drinian!” His mother exclaimed. “I beg Your Majesty’s indulgence: the men of Etinsmere are infamous for their unguarded speech – have been through centuries.”

“Frankness in a man of rank is considered a virtue by a wise sovereign, dear lady: and my Lord Drinian displays uncommon shrewdness for his years.” Nain tapped him on the brow, and had he not been king the boy would have scowled at such blatant condescension. “The great schism between your ancestors and my cousins of the Royal House came about through such direct speaking, we understand?”

“Two hundred and more years ago, Sire, our ancestor Drinian called King Lund the Second a lunatic.” Aunt flinched at his reference to their ancestor’s ignoble outburst. King Nain cackled. 

“That king remembered as _Lund the Lack-Brained_ , if I have my Narnian history aright! Caspians the Eighth and Ninth were better judges of a man’s mettle: they valued the blunt honesty of Etinsmere, as I do; and I dare hope my Lord Drinian will be of great service to his country in time to come by following the illustrious traditions of his ancestors! Surely it must alarm any man of sense that _two_ of the realm’s greatest nobility should be sent to their graves by dire accidents at the same royal hunt?” 

“Glasswater and Western Hills.” Mamma, Drinian realised, was finding the obvious conclusion too horrid to acknowledge. “Sire, what of my brother? Greenglade and Southern March – do they remain imprisoned?”

“Of the Lord Arlian we have no word, and our emissaries are dismissed from the kingdom by order of the Protector’s Council.” Nain removed his spectacles, giving them a thorough polish rather than look his guests in the eye. “Henceforward, our borders are closed, our treaties of trade and mutual assistance declared void. His Highness holds Us culpable in these fictitious _plots_ against his authority. For Our part, We consider treaties the business of kings, not _protectors_ of any description. Until my nephew has his rights, therefore…”

Drinian nodded, composing himself into the most sombre expression he could manage. “Have your ambassadors seen Cas – your nephew, Sire?” he asked, not very hopefully. Nain waved away the small slip with an indulgent smile.

“Briefly aye, and in the presence of _Her Serenity_ Princess Prunaprismia. Ambassador Watin was unable to speak with him, as the lady declares him exceedingly shy.”

“Not so much as he used to be,” Drinian protested, affronted on his friend’s behalf. “Though in _her_ presence I daresay he’s afraid to open his mouth!”

“Forgive my nephew, Sire…”

“My dear Lady Westerwood, our emissaries give their own account of dealings with _all_ those of influence in the Protector’s affinity." The King waved away Aunt's simpering. "And we hear _serenity_ is not a virtue often associated with she who now claims it.”

The Lady Elizabetha managed a watery smile. “Your late sister was apt to call the Princess many things, Sire, but…”

“Termagant, harridan and virago were foremost amongst them - in her letters to me at least.” Drinian failed completely to hide his grin, and the King ruffled his hair. “None of which terms, it would seem, my Lord of Etinsmere disputes! In the words of my ambassador, His Royal Highness is either deeply attached to his aunt or quite terrified of her, for his hand remained in hers and he showed no desire to speak on his own behalf.”

“Drinian?” 

“Mamma? Oh!” Understanding dawned. His opinion - for a novelty - was actively sought. “I never saw affection between them, Sire.”

“Nor between my nephew and his Narnian uncle?”

Biting his lip against the misery that swamped him, Drinian shook his head. “No, Sire. I wish Casp – His Highness – were in Archenland!”

“As do we all.” The glasses came off again, this time enabling the wearer to mop his glistening eyes. “The prospect of rebellion in his name is fading: the nobility is cowed by too many deaths, and the imprisonment of their brethren. I fear your residence in my dominions may be prolonged.”

He felt Aunt’s inhalation and groaned inside. “I am fortunate my sanctuary is so agreeable, Sire: and my relations so much more generous than my impertinence can merit.”

“Well, well.” Much amused, Nain summoned his ministers to applaud their precocious guest’s witticism. “Impertinence is to be encouraged in a man of rank: in later years it may prevent a king’s great folly! We hear you are a skilled dancer for your years – aye, and quite the swordsman, if my Lord Admiral here is to be believed.”

“Better with a cutlass than the broadsword,” Dar admitted. The King chuckled.

“Gurin! Do you hear, the young gentleman practises with a sailor’s blade! Perhaps a berth aboard the _Tiger_ beckons?”

“Your Majesty is gracious to give thought to my nephew’s future employment.”

Not for the first time Drinian suspected his aunt was being rather less than sincere. Uncle Dar gave her a very hard look.

“Will you take luncheon with us, my Lord?” Nain raised his voice, ensuring the whole room understood the favour he was bestowing. “And after, perhaps you shall show off your swordsmanship? The Prince’s master attends this afternoon. Perhaps a contest in the Gallery?”

“Gladly, Sire! Though I doubt my skill will match His Highness’s.”

“I shouldn’t be so sure of that,” Prince Corin piped up, a bit too loudly. “Farix says I attack like a half-mad spider, doesn’t he, Father?”

Nain rolled his eyes. “Only when he means to be complimentary, I fancy! Ah yes, luncheon awaits! My Lady Dowager, with your permission I shall monopolise your son during our meal.”

“Your Majesty does us honour.” Elizabetha winced as she rose from her perch, while beside her Drinian spied his aunt positively smirking. As the King grasped his arm and, talking cheerily about the weather while guiding him toward the Dining Hall he craned his neck, trying to identify the object of her scorn. 

A group of black-draped crones, he decided, who peered down their noses at him as if he dripped with stinking bilge water. Plainly attentions to a foreign nobleman, exiled and penniless, were not attentions worth paying.

Aunt, he concluded, deserved more pity in her permanent state of exile than he.


	16. Fifteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> King Nain is determined to show Narnia her fugitives have his support. The Prince and Princess of Archenland, no less than the exiled Lord Drinian himself, are useful pawns in the greater game...

Late in the afternoon, stripped to shirt and hose, he ambled toward the Great Gallery on the western side of the castle with his uncle capering in his wake, loudly informing half the kingdom he stood as his nephew’s second in the combat to come. 

Drinian pinned a smile into place and tried not to shrivel too noticeably in his thin garments. He was profoundly grateful when a loud hallooing at the long room’s door advertised the presence of a being even more oblivious to sniggers and smirks than Archenland's former Admiral.

“Father’s checked the swords are blunted!” Corin yelled, brandishing his weapon with abandon enough to make men ten feet away skittish. “I’ve never fenced before an audience like this, have you?”

“No, Sir.” Gingerly accepting the broadsword presented by a deadpan usher Drinian tested its weight on his fingers, pleased by the blade’s balance. “And I should sooner not now!”

Corin gnawed his top lip. “I know! But Father’s determined to show us off, you see, and with the Narnian envoys arrived... see those two surly fellows skulking behind Hastin’s shoulder? Reached us before luncheon, I hear, and Father’s determined they should see you honoured. Are you happy with your weapon?”

“Aye, thank you.” The sword slipped between slack fingers as realisation struck like a dagger thrust to the belly. The smaller of the emissaries he recognised: Rilian of Pond’s Valley, that late convert to Miraz’s cause. _That traitor_ , he corrected furiously, come to scout and menace on his master’s behalf. And the King knew.

His knees went weak. His throat tightened and his eyes burned with the effort of keeping back mortified tears. Admiration and applause had been his due as Tirian’s pert heir in Narnia, but to receive them here with calculation, as a statesman’s plaything, was unendurable. And he was powerless to protest against it.

“My Lords, step aside and allow the young gentlemen to display themselves!” As if he sensed his guest’s reluctance King Nain clapped his flabby hands, drawing every eye toward the boys. “And Corin - be kind enough to remember, your _sword_ is your weapon, not your elbow.”

“Yes, Father.” Drinian wondered how often that lecture had been heard. Forcing himself to watch his opponent and not the Protector’s agents he raised his sword and, forward on the balls of his feet, prepared to parry the first blow.

Corin had the better of it at first: Drinian’s attention wandered every time a dark-clad Narnian snagged on the edge of his vision, giving the other boy time to lunge, spindly arms whirling. “Your point!” he gasped as the rounded tip struck his undefended hip. Corin gave vent to a demented cackle.

Swift as a striking snake Drinian whirled his sword upward, catching the prince with the flat against his chin. “Ouf!” Corin yelped. “A point to you! Didn’t see _that_ coming!”

He really was, Drinian conceded as he jumped over an attempted slash across the shins, a most awkward opponent. The King’s warning about elbows made sense in the oddest ways: Corin appeared to have half a dozen of them, jabbing as sharply as his sword’s point and leaving his opponent bewildered as to which way he ought to dodge next. 

He forgot the malevolent observers, becoming intent on his task. His breath came fast and shallow, perspiration dripping into his eyes and making them sting as the duellists danced their way up and down the cavernous chamber. Every clang of blade on blade echoed back from the high ceiling, the sound interspersed with the grunts of the combatants and the encouraging shouts of their audience. “The boy has talent,” Nain called good-nauturedly. “But no _patience!_ Guard up, my Lord of Etinsmere, your right side’s exposed!”

“Father, should you not be – ouch, another point!”

Drinian hooted. Corin sprang at him, gleefully flicking the hem of his shirt. “My point!”

“You’re all arms and legs,” Drinian groused, throwing himself sharply left to evade Corin’s madly flailing free hand. He flicked out with the flat of his weapon, just missing contact with the other boy’s arm. 

“They said – the nurse pulled me – ouf! – from my mother – by the - arms – until they saw – my legs.” Corin confided, punctuating each burst of speech with a lunge. “Truce?”

“Aye.” He was glad to drop the heavy broadsword, his arms hanging loose and almost as long as his companion’s. Both boys bent double, clutching identical stitches that pierced their sides. “Cutlasses are easier to manage!”

“Admirable, my Lords!” King Nain skittered the length of the room to slap both on the back, a gaggle of attendants in his wake offering water, biscuits and cool linen towels. “My son is a rare spider to fend off - arms and legs need another turn toward the trunk, you see - and I’ve seldom seen a lad of his own years do it so capably. Your mother has retired to a guest chamber with a headache, but I trust she will be recovered enough for the ball tonight.”

“May I go to her, Sire?” His discomfort was forgotten. Nain gave him a playful pat on the arm. 

“I fancy her pain will be eased by the departure of the two gentlemen at the end of the room,” he whispered. “But by all means reassure yourself of her well-being. Perhaps, having navigated single combat with my son, we shall see you dance with his sister tonight? Your aunt speaks highly of your elegance…”

Drinian’s brows shot up. “And we must allow a mother occasion to glory in the accomplishment of her son,” Nain finished comfortably. “My apologies for the intrusion of the Protector’s envoys, by the bye. I noticed their presence distracting you, but it must be reported in Narnia…”

“I understand, Sire.” Even as he lied, Drinian damned himself for being the kind of cautious courtier Papa had often condemned. Still: the King beamed; Aunt and Uncle visibly relaxed; and the familiar warming murmur of approbation hummed in the air. If he had to simper and skip for his supper in a foreign court, he pledged silently he would at least do it with such dignity that none would guess what it cost him!

*

They were nearly late, so preoccupied were the women in pinching in his gold-edged crimson tunic and primping about his glossy black hair. “Remember to hold your head up,” Aunt whistled between her teeth on their undignified trot through Anvard’s pale-painted, winding corridors. “And kiss the Princess’s hand at the end of every dance.”

His nose wrinkled. “And don’t pull faces,” his mother added, though he thought she was trying not to giggle. “You’re too handsome to hazard the wind changing and being stuck with _that_ look lifelong!”

Even the Lady of Westerwood was smiling when they reached the ballroom, its doors flung wide and the whistle of flute, trumpet and violin twirling out to the main stairs. Lanterns flickered and lamps gleamed, the shadows they cast competing with the pairs who skipped and spun the length of the room. “A jig,” Drinian exclaimed, starting to laugh. “I thought it would be all dirges!”

“The King prefers merry tune, though he was never a dancer himself.” Dar executed a surprisingly nimble turn, catching his sister-in-law by the hand. “Elizabetha, you’re to sit at His Majesty’s side: amends for the intrusion o’ those whoresons – beg pardon, _ambassadors_ this afternoon.”

“No amend is necessary, though it will be pleasant to watch my son do us credit from such a position.” Her dark eyes shone, and under the adoration in them Drinian was sure he grew another inch at least. Bearing with the ceremonious attentions of the girl mincing toward him on her father’s arm might not be so painful after all.

At least he had no need to fear for his safety, with Anelia as compact and graceful as her twin was gangly. They matched well in a jig and then a slower, more intricate measure of dips, turns and long strides, her flowing sleeves and billowing skirts whispery against his bare legs. In the excitement of the more vigorous dances she even forgot to be regal and began to giggle and mock the staid old crows around the room’s edge just as his friends in Narnia might have.

He forgot he was watched, either scorned or pitied. Corin joined them in something that became more of a scrum than a dance, the three of them catching hands and spinning until they were too breathless to laugh, the musicians had fallen silent and all the court had stopped to stare. 

It was the Prince who brought them to a halt, tripping on his sister’s train and sending all three crashing into a messy puddle of velvet and silk in the heart of the floor. “You _are_ a clot, Corin!” Anelia shrilled through the boys’ howls. “ _Honestly!_ Thank you, Drinian,” she added as he hefted her upright. “How is it you can be as tall as this great spindling _boor_ yet not a tenth as clumsy?”

“Good luck, I daresay.” People chuckled at the immediate retort. For a happy moment he might have been at the Telmar Palace, encouraged in his impudence by all his father’s friends. 

Then King Nain, all bow legs and bonhomie, ambled across to dust down his outraged daughter, and the memory dissolved. Archenland, however kind, was not his home. And no matter how fervently Aunt urged him to, he would not – _could_ not – let his Narnian instincts go.


	17. Sixteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noblesse oblige. No matter what, for the Master of Etinsmere duty remains paramount...

“A full year,” he mumbled, his stomach revolted by the sugared porridge his mother pressed upon him, piping hot on a bitter morning. “No, thank you. I’m not hungry.”

“And I doubt you slept.” Her thin fingers raked through his hair, and though she tried to conceal it he knew Mamma was stifling a yawn. “Neither did I! Your nightmares came back?”

He managed a curt nod, determined not to worry her with the truth: that the bad dreams had tormented him for the month since Anvard as the date his relations tried to ignore loomed nearer. She looked exhausted, dark smudges giving her swollen eyes a sunken cast; he had heard her coughing every time he roused himself with his own cries during the night. Their hosts were determined not to mention Papa or Katharina to the point that Uncle Dar even refused to use his wife’s name lest it distress them: a conspicuous allusion that had exactly the opposite effect to the one intended. 

It would be, he knew, ungrateful to cry and pound the walls after all their kindness.

Except he didn’t want to be grateful, or dignified. He wanted to grieve, and he was stifled by their efforts to stop him. At the first opportunity he fled the house, dodged the hallooing grooms in the stableyard and clambered up to the cavernous hayloft to sob in peace.

*

They were cautious around him for the next few days, which made him feel even worse. Only the servants treated him as if nothing was amiss with Haslin and Ostin leading the way, coaxing him out on a bright afternoon to help bring down the apple harvest. Voices rang from the square of laden trees behind the house; fruit dropped into huge baskets, or missed the mark and shattered messily over the grass. “Too many of our pickers are fat and feeble, m’Lord,” old Haslin shouted, earning himself a chorus of good-natured booing from the labourers in the branches. “A sprightly lad with a sharp eye’ll fill twice as many baskets for Cook as they can!”

“Aye, an’ four times as fast as you, y’ old coot!” The high voice of Ostin’s son Warin, one of the few servants near Drinian’s age, shrilled above the jeers of his fellows. His tousled dark head stuck out between a fork in the branches to their right. “Climb up, Dr – m’Lord! There’s hundreds of apples still to gather.”

“Enough that Cook shan’t miss one?” Laughing, he launched himself at the lower boughs, scrambling up with the agility of a young monkey. Warin leaned across, concealed from the ground by leaves, to shake his hand.

“Neatly covered, Drinian,” he muttered, aware the informality would earn him a whipping if overheard. “Haslin’s a stickler – worked for m’Lady too long!”

“I’d best escape to sea if her formality’s catching.” Inching himself along the stout limb toward a fork overhung with laden boughs Drinian snapped a rosy fruit free, polishing it briskly on his sleeve. “Aunt shan’t venture out today - the grass is too wet for her satin slippers! Where’s Cor?”

“The next tree in line.” A half-chewed apple whistled through the leaves past his ear. Taking a quick bite, Drinian hurled his own back in return. “Bitter, ain’t they?” his concealed assailant observed, just the cracking of a few twigs giving away his movements as he edged along a sturdy branch toward the younger boys. Coppery leaves laced through his blond curls, Cor the kitchen lad thrust another partially eaten fruit their way. “And ‘alf of them are wormy!”

“Must be Miraz Apples,” Drinian mused, twisting three unmarked pieces of fruit from the stems above his head. “Rotten inside and full o’ worms! Here, Warin! Catch!”

“Ow!” The other boy swayed violently, sending apples and twigs tumbling. “Knock me out o’ the trees would you? Take _that!_ ”

Despite howls of protest from the ground their private battle swiftly degenerated into a free-for-all, with rotted and over-ripe fruit flying between the treetops to shatter against branches and (when they popped out) unprotected heads. “You’ve a good wrist, Drinian,” Cor sputtered, pieces of an apple that had struck him square on the chin scattering to shower the indignant adults below. “Two years younger an’ a stronger throw than me!”

“Aye, but age has made you feeble.” From the neighbour tree to the right an especially brownish, pockmarked apple arched, making him duck and snatch at his perch for support. “ _That_ was definitely a Miraz! We ought to put _some_ in the kitchen baskets, mind.”

“If we’re to have the apple pies Cook promised, and these are fit for naught else.” With visible reluctance Warin dropped the missile he had been aiming across the orchard’s width into a pannier set among their tree’s thick roots. “Watch out! M’Lady’s coming!”

Every head disappeared below protective crowns of foliage; eager hands wormed out to pluck at apples considered too small or shiny for use as weapons, which tumbled down into the kitchen’s baskets like a landslide of loose stones. The Mistress of Westerwood slithered on damp grass, but the small squeaks which escaped her narrowed lips were not of dismay that mud clung against her satin slippers. “My nephew!” she panted, seizing the astonished Ostin by a chubby, bark-stained hand. “Where is he?”

“Here, Aunt.” With a clatter he dropped directly from his branch, twigs and leaves catching in his hair. He expected chastisement for _clambering about like a kitchen scullion_ until he registered the twist of open agony on her regular features.

“Come with me.” It took two attempts for her voice to emerge, and when it did it was barely a squeak. “Your mother needs you.”

“Is she ill?” Panic would have rooted him had she not been dragging his hand, heedless of her slipping feet. Her brusque shake of the head did nothing to allay its icy clawing at his gut.

She led him straight to the main parlour, not pausing to remove her filthy shoes. “Mamma, what’s wrong?” he cried, sprinting to the fireside couch where she reclined, her brother-in-law stooped down to press a glass filled with pungent liquid against her mouth. 

She was crying. Though his feet stopped abruptly at the sight of silvery trails on her cheeks Drinian was sure his heart kept lurching forward, striking the wall of his chest. 

Though her eyes may have glistened, or a tang of salt been detectable when he kissed her cheek, Mamma had never allowed him to see her weep. 

She grasped his proffered hand, waving away Dar’s awkward attempt to drip more rum – he recognised the smell now and his stomach clenched in horror – against her swollen lips. “We have a guest,” she whispered, the words dissolving into coughs. Drinian whipped around, suddenly conscious of a looming figure in the corner of the room.

“My Lord.” A tall man in his middle thirties went down on one knee, gaunt features almost concealed beneath a floppy, mud-marked hat. “Right sorry I am to be the cause o’ yet more suffering, sir.”

“J- _Jostain_?” The voice at least was familiar, though rusty and harsh, as if using it strained his vocal chords. 

“Aye, my Lord.” Etinsmere’s loyal retainer clambered upright with a creak of bone and a half-repressed groan. Drinian gave vent to a startled yelp.

“You’re wounded! Uncle, Jostain’s shoulder…”

“’S naught, m’Lord.” Hurriedly covering the rust-stained hole in his coat was a mistake; blood oozed thick and blackish between grimy fingers. Imperious, Drinian pulled the hand away.

“An arrow?” he questioned, shocked by the fiery surge of temper that lanced through the words. Someone _dared_ shoot a man of Etinsmere?

“I’m a deserter, my Lord.” An unrepentant one: there was defiance, even pride, in the flush that marked the lean face. “Miraz’s patrols chased me through the woods south o’ Beruna. Loosed an arrow or three but it’s graze, naught worse.”

“It _looks_ worse.” Drinian had grazed elbows and knees enough to know the difference. “Have you summoned a doctor, Uncle? My man needs attention, and Mamma should be in bed.”

“No.” Instantly he regretted his words. Elizabetha swung her feet to the floor, straightening her shoulders and the last thing he wanted was for her to treat him like an infant and _pretend_. “Jostain brings bad news. I am shaken, but…”

“Just needs a tot of rum lad, but like a lot o’ ladies she has a delicate stomach.” Uncle’s genial bluster had never been less welcome. Drinian bit hard into his tongue, using the mild sting to stop terror taking control. “I’ll fetch some water. We’ll bathe your man’s wound, but we dare not call our physician.”

“I’m a wanted felon, m’Lord, and I’ll bring no fresh trouble on your family.” Jostain’s sunken eyes met his mistress’s, and Elizabetha nodded. “I ran from the Army o’ the North a month ago – been hidin’ in the woods ever since in fear of my life, should Miraz’s search parties find me. Men run every day now - the war’s gone bad, Lords Glozelle and Tamarin don’t speak…. Old Thorian was crushed under a Giant’s foot the last battle I saw… and then, at Beruna…”

“Sit down and let us bathe your shoulder at least.” His head was spinning, but somehow Drinian knew there was worse to come. Jostain's adam's apple bobbed as if it intended leaping from his scrawny throat. 

“The Lord Arlian, sir, with Erimon of the Southern March, had his head struck off in the market square.”

His legs did give way then. Like a bag of turnips Drinian thumped to the ground, feeling nausea rise as the world swam out of focus. He heard Uncle Dar bellowing in the hall; was vaguely conscious of Mamma's quiet sobs above the thunder of blood rushing in his ears. “ _Why?_ ”

Nobody answered: he was almost grateful. Ninian's round, childish face filled his vision and his innards cramped with reminiscent pain. Another heir raised up too soon. Another boy grieving for a beloved father. “Miraz must have hated Caspian the Eighth,” he murmured, ending on a high, hysterical giggle. “To make so many sons fatherless! You - Jostain, did you _see?_ ”

“Aye, m'Lord.” Moving gingerly the fugitive exposed the tattered flesh of his wounded shoulder, grinding his teeth against Dar's tentative brushing with a damp cloth. “Got swept up in the scrum on their way to market and I thought it safer to slip in with 'em than risk being seen skulkin' in the woods. If I'd known - by the Conqueror, I’d've turned north again and kept running ‘til I reached the Wild Lands themselves!”

“Safer to come south.” He had to concentrate on something, Drinian reminded himself, agitatedly turning the broad gold band around his middle finger. Anything that might help hold rage and guilt at bay! “Take some rum, Jostain. Papa said it helps numb pain.”

“Right glad of it, m'Lord.” He was awkward with his left hand, but their visitor sucked greedily at the flask offered while pus and dried gore were wiped from the puncture in his right shoulder. The wound was not deep, Drinian realised with relief; but left untreated, infection would soon set in. “Then I’ll be on my way – can’t loiter here causin’ more trouble to your kin, sir.”

“What you call _trouble_ my father would have named our obligation. Mamma—“

“My Lord of Etinsmere is correct; and you risked your life to bring word to us.” Perhaps it would have been kinder to stay ignorant, whatever Papa’s contempt for that state. Drinian’s heart twisted to see her being so brave, the Daughter of Greenglade struggling to master a stricken sister, but her gentle support bolstered his instinctive determination. “You dare not return to Narnia.”

“Wouldn’t want to, beggin’ your Ladyship’s pardon.” Whistling between his gapped teeth, Jostain leaned away from Dar’s ministrations, decisively covering his torn flesh. “Thank ‘ee, m’Lord; but I dursn’t stay here. You’ve enmity enough from Master Miraz without harbourin’ a fugitive.”

“Are we not fugitives ourselves?” Drinian wondered. “Mamma, what of Ninian – and Aunt Linetia?”

“Your aunt’s brother Nairn is established by proclamation as guardian of Greenglade until Ninian is of full age. His honours are maintained.”

“Solivar read a proclamation before – before it were done, m’Lord.” It ought to unnerve him, seeing a man who had dandled him on his knee as an infant shuffling and deferential, Drinian considered, but he was almost ten now, and Master of Etinsmere for all the usurper’s ill-will! “Greenglade’s _treason_ – forgive me! – being his alone, there’s no taint against his blood and honours. Aye, none but that imposed by a damned tyrant! They say the Dowager leaves the room when her brother enters it – aye, and teaches the young master to do the same.”

“Doubt Nin needs much teaching.” He at least had sincere relations to guard his interests, however he might chafe against this exile’s existence. “The end was quick?”

“Aye, my Lord.” Pain-dulled hazel eyes slid right, to the resolutely impassive face of the woman on the couch. “Made a fair speech, never mentioned Miraz once, and knelt to the block without a quiver, like the Lord Erimon before him. The kingdom’s in mortal fear, and not a man-jack of us leaves our cottage without checkin’ where our neighbour is first!”

“Yet still nobody dares oppose Miraz’s government!” The commons he could not condemn: why should they be brave when their masters skulked like cowards? “Uncle, will you allow Jostain to hide in your house tonight? He can’t go back to Narnia; not having ventured here.”

“I’ll have a corner made ready – without your knowledge of course.” Uncle gnawed his lower lip, regarding their visitor with an intensity that made Drinian uneasy. “And as for Narnia… your life, young man, would have the value of a buck in the Conqueror’s hunting park after fleeing to us!”

“Beggin’ your Lordship’s pardon, but I’ve nowhere else to go. And _no_ , my Lord Drinian; I dursn’t make them bast – villains hate this house any more’n they already do.”

Dar cleared his throat. “The _Lady of Westerwood_ sails for Galma next week with a cargo of wheat and wine. I’ve connections through trade…”

Jostain set his feet square apart and scowled. “M’Lord, I shan’t abandon my right place.”

“Drinian.” Elizabetha stretched for his hand. “Command him,” she whispered, hiding the instruction behind his slight frame. “As his master…”

_No!_ his mind screamed, sickened by the realisation. To save his friend’s life, he must send his servant away. The only alternative was to let him sneak back to a certain death in Narnia.

Yet Jostain stared at him with pleading eyes, desperate to do what he saw as his duty. Drinian’s fingers toyed again with the Etinsmere signet. _Duty_. Had he not been taught, that was the guiding star his family’s ship followed?

“You must go to Galma.” His voice shook, but his eyes stayed dry. “We shall not allow a man of ours to skulk in the woods, waiting for an archer with a truer aim than the last! Uncle – may I sail with you to Galamaia? I must see Jostain as safe in his exile as I am.”

“M’Lord…”

“I should sooner you stayed with us.” Lordly authority melted away, leaving a forlorn child who yearned for the smallest connection with home. Drinian shook himself, determined not to falter. “But we accept what we cannot change - you remember my father always said so? When – when we’re safe home, I’ll send for you.”

Jostain’s taut posture loosened. “On your honour, m’Lord?”

“On the word of an Etinsmere.” Drinian thrust forward his beringed hand. For the second time, Jostain went down to his knees.

“I’ll not forget it, my Lord,” he said formally.

“Neither shall I.” Drinian urged his servant to his feet, fixing the leathery feel of Jostain’s palm against his into his memory. “Go with my uncle. When do we ride for Barwell, sir?”

His relations shared a speaking look. “Four days’ time; and I’ll send word to a merchant friend of mine at Galamaia, he’ll take your man in. We’ll disguise you as an eager apprentice, Master Jostain,” Dar decided. “You’ll see you mother to her rooms, Drinian? You come with me, young man! New clothes, and a sling for that arm, I think! And how long has it been since you ate a good meal?”


	18. Seventeen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Lord Tirian dreamed of making the Narnians masters of the sea. His son is about to see why he never said it might be easy...

The _Lady of Westerwood_ heeled hard onto her northerly course, her sail slapping thunderously against the mainmast with the kick of a freshening breeze. Drinian stood at the starboard rail beside a distinctly queasy Jostain, cleaned up and with his damaged arm hanging in a loose black sling. “No good ever came o’ the sea, m’Lord,” the tall man muttered, casting a wary glance beyond the brig’s high sternpiece to the fading smear that was land. “Even the air tastes funny!”

“And you a man of Etinsmere!” Carefully Drinian pried his neighbour’s fingers one by one from their death-grip of the rail. “All our fortunes came by my ancestor’s taking ship against the Conqueror’s enemies, remember? And don’t lock your knees! Let them bend, so you can ride the ship’s roll. We have three days aboard to reach Galamaia, Uncle says, and you’ll ache everywhere if you stand so _stiffly_.”

Jostain’s greenish tinge darkened at the thought. “Least o’ my worries, m’Lord,” he muttered. Drinian rolled his eyes.

"You can go below if you're feeling sick again," he suggested, trying not to sound as bored as he felt. By his companion's grimace, he suspected his effort failed.

"Thank 'ee, m'Lord but it stinks down there; and I'd sooner see what's about to kill me!"

"Miraz's arrows, if you'd stayed ashore." 

Jostain grimaced. "Least they're quick! Three days o’ this endless rocking and swingin’..."

"Stand less _taut_ and you shan't feel it." Papa had dreamed of making his people the mariners of Narnia's future. Drinian was almost glad the Lord Tirian was not present to see his brave man whimpering like a baby. "Sarix! What _is_ that you're doing?"

The slight sailor stopped in his track. "Just a bit of ‘ousekeeping, m’Lord," he answered, giving Drinian's neighbour a doubtful look. "The Admiral – ‘is Lordship, I mean..."

"He’d prefer the first title, I think."

"Aye, sir." Deep lines cut around the sailor's dark eyes as he smiled. "And wouldn't the rest o’ Barwell! Anyrate, ‘e noticed some frayin’ about the sheets – that’s those ropes, feller - and wants 'em replaced when we strike land. I'm commanded to knot and splice for the rest of the day. Care to watch, m'Lord?"

"I know a little of rigging. Can I not help?"

He never saw the indulgent smile which crossed Captain Sartin's face; couldn’t know how his clear voice carried the length of the squat vessel. "Aye, m'Lord, if you wish," Sarix agreed, settling himself cross-legged on the deck. "P'raps you’ll try sitting too, Jostain - might not feel as sick, lower down! Now, my Lord, if you'll start splicin' those tails together for ratlines, I'll set to with the main rig. Keep the ropes taut, and..."

"The knots strong," Drinian finished for him, deftly twisting one end of thick twine around the other. "Jostain, hold the other end, please. My arms are not long enough."

"Glad to be o’ service, m'Lord." Over his head, the two men smiled. Drinian caught the look and scowled. 

Immediately they were sober again and, engrossed in his task, the boy forgot his brief annoyance. The _Lady of Westerwood_ tacked again, the wind strengthening against her sail. Softly, he started to whistle.

Only to stop himself, shocked by the reedy sound. He hadn’t whistled since Narnia! 

It felt surprisingly good to do it again.

*

He stayed wakeful late into the night, gazing at the stars from the stern and heedless of the night's chill until Jostain materialised to drape a heavy cloak over his shoulders. "My Lady'd have my hide if you caught a chill, sir," the man murmured, deliberately averting his eyes from the silver path of moonlight which skittered on the crests of plashing waves. "Aye, I know I said I wanted my hammock, but have you _been_ below? All slimy and damp - aye, an' it stinks, too!"

"I’ll ask the Captain to set men pumping the bilges in the morning if it upsets you." He tried not to yawn, and failed miserably. “Still, I ought to be in bed. Stay on deck if you prefer the smell of sea air to the bilge water.”

“Not much to choose between ‘em!” Dropping a stride behind his master Jostain followed him the brig’s length, pattering down the ladder into the engulfing darkness below deck. The raw stink of a fine film of stagnant sea water and sweat stung his nostrils on the short walk forward, between swaying hammocks and the hanging joints of salted meat to the sacks slung at the very bow for their use. 

“Can’t see a damned thing, and I’m not sure I’d care to,” Jostain groused, the complaint shimmering warmly on his lord’s ear. Drinian stifled a chuckle against his hand. 

“No more crowded than your dormitory at Etinsmere, though I’ll grant it smells worse.” He paused just long enough for the tall man to snigger, before adding: “At least, I hope it does!”

“Aye, m’Lord. Right kind to its servants your family, not leavin’ ‘em to sleep in the pigsties.”

“Clean animals, pigs. So my grandfather always said.” The gentle motion of his hammock had an immediate effect on the weight of his eyelids. Usually a restless sleeper, the rocking of a ship in motion was enough to have Drinian snuggling under a thin sheet, half-asleep in a moment. “Jostain?”

“Aye, m’Lord?”

“There’s no call for sleeping armed. Your dagger…”

“Feel better for having it, sir. M’Lady and your father would expect….”

“That I should be perfectly safe aboard my uncle’s ship.” Still, it was a pleasant thought to hold as he slid toward sleep. His people, Miraz notwithstanding, remained loyally _his_.

*

He was roused by the whistle of wind seeping through the hatches even before the change in the vessel’s motion could register. “There’s a fair storm brewing!” he exclaimed, almost falling from his hammock. “Ugh! Jostain did you _have_ to be sick _there?_ ”

“Weren’t by choice, m’Lord.” The Narnian landsman was not the only weak-stomached member of the crew, Drinian diagnosed: the hold reeked with the sour stench of vomit and half a dozen of their companions were groaning, bent double or hanging from wildly swinging beds, their faces grey in the muted light. “Conqueror save us! Them _seas!_ ”

The brig lurched madly, making every man stagger and half of them swear. “The Captain will need all hands on deck, I fancy,” Drinian observed, quickest of them all to right himself. He dragged on the previous day’s woollen hose and stout jerkin, snatching the ladder as the ship bucked against a heavier swell. “Ow! At least we’re being pushed in the right direction!”

“Aye, m’Lord.” Grizzled tars stood aside, allowing a mere lad to scramble up to the poop ahead of them where Captain Sartin clung to the big wheel, struggling to hold course even with his master’s weight thrown in support of his own. Men staggered on the maindeck, fighting recalcitrant rope and canvas as gigantic waves sluiced across the planking. “If it don’t push us to the bottom first!”

“Are all your Narnians such cheery companions, Nephew?” Dar howled over the elements’ wails. Drinian laughed. 

“Never on dry land, sir. Jostain! Stay away from the bulwarks, man! How shall I explain to my mother if you’re pulled overboard?”

_That_ , he was satisfied, would keep his servant from danger of drowning for the remainder of the voyage!

The single great sail was being inched up to the mainyard, bunching in an untidy roll of cloth. Across the horizontal beam tiny figures crawled, frantically securing its bulk with leather straps and Drinian’s gut tightened as one man slipped, his legs flailing beneath the greasy beam, only to be dragged back to safety by his neighbour. He let out the breath he hadn’t known he was holding. 

It had never occurred to him, clambering about on a sunny day just off the mouth of the river with land in constant sight, that sail handling aloft might be dangerous.

“I suppose that means Uncle shan’t let me do it,” he muttered, flexing his knees against the vessel’s sudden sideways shift. A sodden mariner climbing the main deck ladder to address his Captain staggered. Quick as lightning, Drinian thrust out a steadying hand. 

“Thank ‘ee, young – m’Lord!”

“Ah, Lune.” Sartin grimaced at his Boson, although Drinian suspected the expression might have been a grin under less trying conditions. “If you’ve further ill news, keep it to yourself until the weather clears, agreed?”

“No bad news, Cap’n. Sky’s lightenin’ to the west, so we may be through the worst of it.”

“It _is!_ ” He could barely believe he had not surveyed the skies the instant he came above deck. _Father would be furious at such a basic lapse!_ “Look, the cloud’s thinner; moving slower, too.”

“A sailor’s eye, that,” Sartin risked lifting a hand from the wheel, shielding his eyes as he stared astern. “And a better balance than half the scurvy lubbers we call crew, my Lord!”

“Born to it: did you hear Sarix praise his knotting and splicing yesterday?” Dar released his grip on the tiller too and the brig responded with a lurch that sent a dozen men sprawling. “Aslan’s confounded _Mane!_ Best hope the lighter airs catch us before Galma, my lad, else all your efforts with the ropes will be for naught! How’re the hands, by the bye? Blistered?”

“No, Uncle.” His palms were, Drinian conceded, still red with rope burn, but the slight sting hardly merited a fuss. “When the sail’s unfurled, may I help?”

Sartin opened his mouth, caught the former admiral’s grin, and snapped it shut again. “If your uncle’s willing, m’Lord, aye. Lune – you’ll instruct the Lord Drinian?”

“Doubt he’ll need it, Cap’n, but I’ll stand watch.” Water dribbling off the end of his prominent nose, Lune winked at the grinning boy. “Got the basics o’ seamanship already, so the fellows say – ‘cepting the shanties of course.”

“ _Not_ the Gallant Girls of Galamaia Lune, unless you hope to be attending my burial soon.” Dar guffawed massively, and even Sartin smirked. “Aye, skip along, lad. Obey Boson’s orders and keep Jostain here from getting under the fellows’ feet! The squall may be passing, Sartin, but I fancy we’ll have more between Galma and home!”

*

His hands were raw by dinnertime: scrambling about soaked rigging left his palms feeling shredded and his lungs about to burst from exertion, but his spirits had seldom been higher. He had clambered the length of the mainyard, unbuckling the leather straps which secured the sail; peered in every direction from the fighting top; even been permitted to fire a brace of arrows into the sea to gauge an archer’s range. He had spied the crown of another ship’s mast before the lookout and identified her as a schooner of Terebinthian rig, winning a slap on the back from Lune and a caw of delight from Uncle Dar. Even Jostain forgot to be frightened, so fascinated was he in watching Drinian’s slight figure materialising wherever there was work to be done.

He still slept that night with the hilt of his dagger biting his hip, even after conceding he need not have recourse to it among such a crew. And he still eyed the foaming wave that curled like a drooping moustache ahead of the ship’s bow on their final morning with the suspicion of a man facing a slavering bear. “Right glad I shall be to have ground under my feet that don’t keep movin’, m’Lord,” he admitted, tearing off a chunk of extra bread at breakfast. “And that don’t make a man feel sick to his guts for days at a time! Taken me this long to face food again, and now…”

“You’ll find firm ground strange to walk on for a few hours,” Drinian warned him cheerfully. “I always find it more unnerving than the motion of a deck! Your merchant friend, Uncle…”

“Will welcome Jostain, for Narnia’s sake as much as mine. They did a fair trade with Caspian the Ninth’s court, all stopped under Miraz! You’ll ride with us to Raimon’s establishment?”

“Yes, sir.” Drinian fought the mutinous expression that was determined to steal over his face. “But you _will_ let me help run up the new rig? Lune said…”

“We’ll be at anchor a week: ample time to learn your craft in the dockyard as well as seeing your man settled in his new home. _No_ , Sartin! My nephew is set on a naval career, so best he discovers the chaos and damned corruption of shipwrights young. He has the fabled temper of Etinsmere too - fair terrorise the idle dogs in years to come, no doubt!”

“Glad I’ll be to see it, m’Lord.” Sartin raised his cup in playful salute. “We’ve made good speed. If you take a glass to the fighting top, Captain Drinian, you should sight Galma within the hour.”

“Thank you – _Admiral_ Sartin.” With a cheeky grin he abandoned the remnants of his breakfast, snatching the telescope already stowed under their bench. Jostain shook his untidy head.

“Proper proud my Lord Tirian would be,” he murmured, the sliver of sound stopping Drinian dead in his tracks. Papa? Proud of him?

He was slow to spot the grey smear of land forming on the horizon. Even an hour after they were spoken the memory of Jostain’s words kept tears fresh in his eyes.


	19. Eighteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Galma. It sounded so exotic to a pair of small boys in Narnia. Can it live up to Drinian's infant expectations?

The brig shuddered to her core, crashing into the slime-covered harbour wall with unwonted force. Drinian winced for the poor fellows hanging in the rigging, certain the great mast timber itself must have bowed against their juddering stop. 

Still, he could hardly blame the Captain for their inelegant anchoring when even finding a berth for a squat trading vessel to slide into was a treacherous task in so crowded a port.

Galamaia from the sea looked disappointingly like a larger Barwell: low, timber-framed shops, their paintwork cracked and peeling; taverns and tiny houses built of crumbly brick nestling between giant stone warehouses, their open doors spilling every type of hardware and provision into the dusty street. “Soil’s poor hereabout,” Lune remarked, beating time to the last grunts of a capstan shanty while the anchors splashed away. “Import just about everything they eat what didn’t breathe an hour before, the Galmians – most of it from Narnia in days past, I’ll wager. Coo! Don’t half stink o’ rotten fish!”

“Herring.” They had been his sister’s favourite. Drinian wondered if that was why their pungent stink made his stomach turn now. “Barrels of them to be smoked, look!”

“Messy job, that.” Jostain looked as impressed with his new residence as Drinian felt. “Fish guts everywhere! You said my landlord’s a farmer, m’Lord?”

“A wool and cloth merchant with land beyond the town, according to Uncle. You shan’t be sent fishing, I have his word on it.”

“Skippers hereabout’ll be glad to hear it, m’Lord. They can’t be carryin’ retching bloomin’ lubbers on every voyage!” 

Lune, Drinian realised, rather liked Jostain. He would not be alone in missing his friend on the homeward journey.

*

The instant the hold was emptied the Narnians were summoned, smartened in the Captain’s cabin, and marched down the gangplank onto Galmian soil. “Raimon will meet us at his shop on the main market square,” Dar hollered, ensuring every passing idler turned to gawp. “I’ve assured him in my nephew’s name you’re an honest fellow whose hand will _not_ be found in the monthly rents, and a hard-working countryman at that. Do Etinsmere credit in your exile, as your lord does.”

“We need not doubt it.” Jostain’s features pinched tight, and irritation surged to heat Drinian’s blood. He dug his fingernails into his palms, concentrating on the sensation against a flood-tide of useless indignation and reminding himself firmly that Uncle meant no harm with what he considered a trifling joke. “I hope only this _Messire Raimon_ is worthy of so honest a servant.”

Jostain’s bloodless lips slackened into a pleased smile. “Thank you, m’Lord!” he muttered, dropping half a pace behind as the harbour road turned sharply inland, thinning into a dusty track two carts would struggle to pass on. 

Tall, narrow buildings loomed on either side, filtering the watery sunlight and (Drinian suspected) concealing in shadow a good deal of the filth he could smell compressed in the wheel ruts. “Not the most promising first sight o’ foreign lands, but it does improve farther in,” his uncle stage-whispered. Tow-headed children peered from windows; scrawny dogs chased svelte, strutting cats down alleyways between blocks. An old woman dragged a squealing goat toward the dock, kicking up dust in their faces as they passed. 

Drinian wished profoundly he could have remained aboard.

His memory meandered back to that sunny day in Narnia when emissaries from the Duke of Galma had visited King Caspian’s palace to announce the birth of a daughter to their lord. Restimar he thought it had been who, having partaken too liberally of His Majesty’s hospitality, had blurted in the orchard that _they’ll see the squalling wench Queen of Narnia before our Prince is out of leading reins!_

How was he to have known that Prince, with his older playmate, had sheltered in the trees above him? Caspian might scarce have passed his fourth birthday, but he had understood the indiscreet remark, and the horror in his eyes had been a sight to behold. A baby? A _girl?_ Betrothed to _him?_

He would be even more scandalised, that playmate considered now, to see the paltry place the baby’s father ruled. Even as they emerged from the passageway’s end into an airy square lined with arcaded shops and substantial houses Drinian was comparing Galamaia with the towns of Narnia, and finding it severely wanting. To think he and his friends had whispered in awe of so exotic a place!

The main market clustered in the middle of the square: a collection of stalls and lean-to tables loaded with meat, fish, wooden utensils and iron pots. The people, contrary to Drinian’s grim expectation, looked prosperous: well-fed women in bright gowns chatted, skipping sideways to avoid a flock of geese being driven from the north of the town. Dominating the eastern side was a pink brick and grey stone structure fronted with ornate iron gates. “The Duke’s Palace,” Dar hissed. “And he’s _at home_ , if the pennant flying is any guide! The price of everything and the value o’ naught, that’s what Rairton knows - all his subjects say so! Ah! Raimon!”

“My Lord of Westerwood, always an honour!” Though the greeting was obsequious the speaker, a rotund, rosy-cheeked man barely taller than Drinian himself, gleamed with unrepentant good humour. “And my Lord of Etinsmere, bid you welcome to our poor island! This must be the Narnian gentleman you bring me.”

Arms across his ample chest, he pursed his lips and subjected the shuffling Jostain to a critical survey. “Well, he looks a sturdy fellow - apart from the arm of course, but we’ll soon see that right! Great pity, the troubles in Narnia - my wife misses the Glasswater lace, and your Etinsmere velvet of course. Miss the cabbages more, myself.”

“Cabbages?” Drinian shared a look of wonder with Jostain.

“Aye, m’Lord, for while we’ve meat a-plenty, our soil’s only use is pasture.” Raimon ducked his brown head, revealing a circular bald patch at the crown, carefully combed over with a few limp strands. “Cabbages, carrots, corn and potatoes… yonder miserable _Miraz_ has stopped our merchants trading and for that, we who depend on our foreign trade shan’t…”

Drinian assumed Uncle must have deliberately stepped on the garrulous fool’s foot. “But of course, he’s crimes far worse than offending trade on his conscience,” Raimon finished hurriedly, leading them into the porch of his gaudily decorated cloth emporium at the north-west corner, where three stools were set before the large window display. Jostain took station behind the one Drinian settled on, warily surveying the Galmians going about their business. His posture only softened, as far as the boy could tell, when a pretty girl with laughing brown eyes, her shawl slipping to reveal a fleshy shoulder, smiled his way.

“When the contemptible tyrant falls, we shall add offences against the mercantile world to the charges against him,” Dar murmured wryly. “Always assuming the villain’s not torn to shreds by an enraged populace first!”

“Hardly likely the commons will rise, with their lords falling one after another.” With a snap of the fingers Raimon summoned a sleek, onyx-haired girl from the shop’s murky interior bearing a tray and four tall glasses. “Our wine’s a tad _raw_ but there’s an ample supply – you’ll take a drop, my Lord Drinian? You’ll not have heard the fate of the Brothers Beaversdam yet, I’ll wager?”

“Lund and Marton?” Big and shaggy as their friend Arlian but not a tenth as vocal, how could they, mild joint masters of a minor province, challenge Miraz’s rule? “Are they harmed?”

“Locked away in a tower. Insanity runs in the blood, so the rumour goes, and one went for t’other with a meat cleaver.” Raimon harrumphed into his drink. “A likely story, that’s what folk who did business at Beaversdam say!”

“By the Conqueror’s bloodied Sword!” Jostain swore, one hand wavering in vague apology. “Devoted to each other, them two. That whoreso – washerwoman’s brat! As if callin’ old Irina a madwoman weren’t enough!”

“ _Irina?_ ” Drinian felt the name creak from his throat. Jostain stared fixedly at a moss-filled crack between paving slabs. “What has he done to her?”

“M’Lady begged me not to tell you, sir,” his servant mumbled, colour racing up the scraggy length of his neck. “Said she didn’t want you distressed any more’n needful.”

“Has he locked Irina in a tower?” But for his nurse’s interference he would have rushed into Katharina’s room and been slaughtered with her; and where once he might have wished for that fate, Drinian prided himself on being stronger now. He had to live. He had too many offences to avenge, and if Irina were harmed then Miraz had added another to the list. “Tell me!”

They all goggled at the implacable command behind his words. “Best make a clean breast of it, Jostain,” Dar boomed, his forced jollity setting Drinian’s teeth on edge. “I know from long experience an Etinsmere won’t be denied when _that_ tone comes out!”

“Sopespian an’ Glozelle took her, a week after you fled, m’Lord – but you’ll not tell my Lady I betrayed her?” Too late to retract if he refused Drinian considered, giving his pledge with a curt nod. “Irina screamed an’ kicked – took a chunk out o’ Sopespian’s hand I fancy – swearin’ they were the damned murderers and that them and their master together would rot in salt water for their sins. We tried to stop ‘em m’Lord, but you never saw such an armed troop, all in steel for one feeble old dame that wouldn’t let her ‘ands be bound! 

“Ellena took a smack in the face and old Peridan’s leg got broke in the confusion, and right sorry I am to be tellin’ you all this, for there’s naught can be done about it while that lickspittle tyrant lives, and I know you’ll take our troubles to heart…”

His doting nursemaid incarcerated. Faithful retainers assaulted. And he sat cradling a glass of rough wine in the weak Galmian sunshine. Penniless; powerless to protect them. _What kind of Narnian Lord have I become?_

“Guilt corrodes the innards, lad. Don’t allow it to taint you.” Uncle, he realised, understood exactly what made him scowl: a Lord of Archenland recognising too well how he would feel in the Narnian’s seat. “So, the lady identified her master’s killers, did she? Small wonder they feel safer with her locked away! What’s the commotion, Raimon?”

“The Ducal family!” Clapping his slick palms together the merchant knocked over his stool in his haste to rise, throwing himself forward toward an enclosed carriage that rattled across the square accompanied by a cheering, jostling throng. In spite of himself, Drinian craned to peer at the occupants as they jolted by.

A tall, spare man in black and white; an eagle’s beak of a nose and deepset eyes that did not flicker on the excited faces of the owner’s capering subjects. At his side, in peacock splendour, sat a heavily-bejewelled woman cursed with flattish, regular features unmarked by any trace of character that made the Duchess of Galma entirely forgettable the instant she passed from one’s sight. 

Nobody would forget the face of the small girl bouncing on her lap. Her pale face smothered in a myriad of small brown marks, the child wore vibrant green silks that matched her eye colour and a vivacious smile that would ordinarily have dominated a pleasing face.

“They’d marry Caspian to a freckled squinter?” Drinian wondered aloud, earning a jab in the ribs for his honesty. The girl’s gaze appeared to jerk at random, the left eye skewed to peer permanently away from the place her fat little finger pointed. “Most unfortunate for her,” he added hurriedly, reminded by the glares attracted how his clear, precise accents carried. His uncle grinned.

“Those crisp Etinsmere vowels travel well: be useful aboard ship someday!” he chortled, enjoying the boy’s discomfort. “Now Raimon, we have business to attend! Stroll around town a little Drinian. I daresay you’ll find Galamaia more congenial on closer acquaintance! Jostain, you’ll ensure your master finds no mischief until luncheon? 

“Afterward we’ll ride for Raimon’s estates for the night, and _yes_ , Drinian: we shall be back afloat by dinner tomorrow. Did not the Captain pledge to delay running the new rig until Your Lordship was aboard to assist?”


	20. Nineteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Galma may have proven unimpressive, but at least it's a distraction. Back in the Northern Lands, ominous clouds continue to gather...

His hands still felt leathery and blistered when he rode through the open gates of Westerwood a week later, although the muscles of his upper arms had finally ceased to burn. “Make a topman of you yet,” the old admiral roared, surrendering his sweating mount to Ostin. “Wife! Katharina, do you not come running to greet your sailor nowadays? Lion confound ‘em, where are the women, eh?”

“M’Lady’s on her way, Sir.” Ostin’s beady gaze slid beyond his master, snagged on Drinian’s and shifted quickly away. “We had no word from Barwell – hardly expected to see you home so soon…”

“Drinian, come upstairs directly.” Her eyes were sunken, he realised: as if Aunt, slipping in her haste to reach them from the house, had been weeping. She wore none of her jewels, and her long silver-streaked jet hair was dragged simply back from her face, not twisted and pinned in its usual severe style. “Your mother has been asking for you.”

For an awful instant he lost all power in his legs. “Is she ill?” he croaked, his eyes drawn to the bloodied cloth in her hands. Katharina Westerwood bit her lip.

“Much recovered already, my dear. Doctor Kol has been at her side for two nights without sleeping but her fever is broken, and she has taken a little broth today.” She reached for his hand, and the gentle squeeze cracked his frozen heart in two. For Aunt to be tender, something must be very wrong.

Caught between familiarly conflicting urges – run and hide against face what can’t be ignored – Drinian allowed himself to be guided through the servants’ corridors and up two flights of narrow stairs toward the large, white-curtained bed where, like a rag doll, Elizabetha of Etinsmere lay with folded hands and closed eyes. He licked his dry lips, acknowledging the physician’s bob of greeting with a nod. “Mamma?”

Sooty lashes fluttered. Bloodless lips turned upward into a shadow of her former merry smile. “I’m not so frail as I seem, dearest,” her rusty voice pledged. “Katharina, have you been frightening the child?”

“Ignorance is a sin in a man of rank, as you’ve said so many times, my dear.” She released his hand, letting him scamper to kneel at her bedside, dark eyes enormous in a face almost as pale as hers. “Your mother has been very ill, Drinian. You’re not a fool, for all your inattention in lessons; you can judge the case for yourself. But the worst is past, as long as your mother is _sensible_ , eats her broth and remains in bed.”

“In your grandmother’s absence, Aunt has played the mother to me.” The two women smiled at each other with greater fondness than he had ever seen before. “But you know I loathe weak gruel. Your father said it thins the blood.”

“The physicians say otherwise.” Aunt withdrew, gesturing to the cringing physician to follow. “Elizabetha…”

“Let him stay, Katharina! I must hear that Jostain is settled. Have you told him…”

Pursing her lips, the older woman gave a jerk of the head in demurral. “Then ignorance is not always a sin.” Patting the side of her bed Elizabetha shifted cautiously, the strain of not wincing plain in her eyes as he sat, careful not to jolt her. “The war in the North is over, Drinian. Tamarin and his nephew Maric are dead – aye, all our Passarid neighbours gone. The same day Tamarin fell, a truce was proclaimed. The Giants pledge to retreat beyond Ettinsmoor; Narnia waives all demand for tribute… _an honourable accord between two noble contestants_ , so the decree declares.”

“He sent the kingdom to war to remove one family, and he’s too great a fool even to disguise it.” He ought to have felt anger; rage on behalf of the sons left fatherless by a needless conflict; contempt for the weak usurper so desperate to destroy his rivals he would risk bringing ruin on an entire nation. He wanted to, and yet all Drinian could really feel was a tiredness that seeped to his marrow. Had he expected better of Miraz? “What did Narnia do, Mamma, to deserve _him?_ ”

“What did His Majesty, or your father, or Terian, Tolian and Tamarin do, save disparage the King’s poltroon of a brother as he deserved?” She stroked the dampness he didn’t feel from his smooth cheek, a forlorn acknowledgement of his harshly won maturity. “There’ll be no more deaths among the men of the North he sent to fight his meaningless war; and so few good men remain even such a dolt as Miraz must feel himself secure! Did you hear in Galma about the Brothers of Beaversdam?”

“Aye.” Through long nights in his hammock on the voyage home he had planned to challenge her silence about Irina’s fate, but seeing her so fragile his courage failed. “Can I fetch anything? Water, or more soup?”

“Thank you, but your aunt has quite filled me with gruel. Will you help me sit?”

He dared not grasp her shoulders too tightly as they shuffled her into a seated position against a stack of pillows, afraid her delicate bones might snap. “Is Jostain’s new master kind?” she demanded, giving a tug that toppled him fully onto the mattress beside her. “Your uncle grumbles his estate’s small and the soil wretched, but he promised me our friend will suffer no ill-treatment.”

“He seemed so, and his wife could hardly have made us more welcome.” He had been embarrassed by her effusions, but for Jostain’s sake had bitten his tongue. “Their lands are poor compared with Uncle’s – still less Etinsmere’s - but there’s ample work for him, a cottage, and all the servants are well fed and respectable. Raimon says he’ll teach him business, if Jostain proves as clever as I say.”

“I’m glad.” Her heavy eyes looked brighter he decided, launching into an energetic recitation of his recent adventures at Galamaia.

Tiptoeing down the corridor an hour later, the Mistress of Westerwood was cheered by the sound of uproarious laughter rolling from her sister-in-law’s room. The house, startled as she was to find herself conceding it, had been much too quiet with both Dar and Drinian away.

*

It was a month before the patient was well enough to leave her room. Drinian’s birthday tea was a meagre affair, the rich cakes and cream scones being removed lest the mere sight of them upset her delicate stomach. The Westerwoods accepted an invitation to visit Anvard, but left their relations quiet at home. The lady was too susceptible to travel in icy conditions; the young gentleman adamant in his refusal to abandon her.

Still, warmer weather brought improvement enough for Elizabetha to amble through the fields on a sedate cob, laughing at her son’s reckless determination to set his gelding at every obstacle he could find. “You have a good seat for _a tar_ ,” she chuckled, reaching out to give his windblown hair a fond pull. “If you don’t break every bone in falls between now and your next birthday, you may do credit to my instruction as an adult.”

Drinian stuck out his lower lip, let go the reins and squared his shoulders, dropping his voice to a fair imitation of his father’s gruff rumble. “I should prefer to see the country from the deck of a galleon, if it be all the same to your Ladyship!”

Her shriek of laughter made a passing farm hand stop and stare. “We should turn back,” she said, giving the astonished man a charming smile. “If we gallop, we may _just_ reach Westerwood before the rain comes.”

The words were barely out before the first heavy droplets sploshed against his upturned face. “Or perhaps not,” she added, spurring her mount into a canter. Hunching his shoulders, Drinian followed suit, his bay’s longer stride easily outstretching her stockier animal. By the time they reached the stable yard, they were both laughing and thoroughly drenched


	21. Twenty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The loneliness of exile is hard enough. For Drinian, there's an even deeper grief to be faced...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This remains the toughest thing I think I've ever written.

She lay in the middle of the big white bed, her breathing too shallow to stir the thin sheet over her chest. Drinian cradled her hand in both of his, lost to the murmurs of his companions standing withdrawn at the shuttered window. Hope had gone. She had been the first to say it.

Since that moment not even Uncle Dar had ventured into the limited range of his vision, aware of his impotence in the face of mortal grief. The doctor had been dismissed, at her instruction. The servants were confined to their own quarters. The silence, though he welcomed its deadness, oppressed him like a leaden weight.

The fingers which had been limp against his palm twitched. “Mamma?”

She tried to smile, and her bravery broke his heart afresh. “Dearest child,” she murmured, returning the light pressure of his fingers with her own. “Be strong for Etinsmere, and be the man your father sought to be. Don’t weep for me! I shall watch you grow from a better place.”

He ached to cry but his eyes were itchy, painfully dry. His lungs were tight, as if all the breath had been slowly squeezed from their depths. “I will be good.”

“I don’t doubt it.” Speaking hurt, but he knew her too well to urge her stop. “Obey your aunt and uncle, and serve King Nain well. He has been good to us. Only – never forget. Once a Lord of Narnia, _always_ a Lord of Narnia.”

A round pebble formed in his throat to trap his attempted response. He nodded instead.

She managed a long, shuddering breath. “Go home as soon as Miraz falls– and fall he must, no evil lasts for ever. Promise me…”

Coughing racked her. Gently he dabbed the yellow mess that spilled between her lips away, sliding a long arm around her shoulders to raise her, light as a child, into a supporting hold. 

“I _will_ find Kathi.” How he was to set about it was a concern for another time. Drinian knew what distressed his mother most: dying while her daughter’s remains rotted abandoned in a pit. And though it might prove beyond the ingenuity of armies, he would promise anything to soothe her into her final sleep. 

“And bring me home to lie beside her?”

He could answer only with a shaky nod. Her eyes, opaque with exhaustion and pain, almost brightened for the final time. 

“You’re a good boy, Drinian. Remember that Papa and I were _always_ proud of you.”

“I was never more than you made me.” Careful not to jolt her, he stretched to place a feathery kiss against her cold brow. With a sigh and a half-smile Elizabetha, Daughter of Greenglade and Dowager Lady of Etinsmere, expelled her last soft breath.

He knew it instantly, feeling the muscles cramped for days in fever’s grip fall slack. Dropping his chin into her loose black hair he gathered her up into a desperate embrace, the tears that had refused to fall beginning to spill silently into the silky strands. 

The whole weight of Westerwood sank down on his shoulders. Inside his chest a spring was winding tight, dragging his innards into a hard, cold coil. Beyond the narrow limit of the bed was an endless empty expanse.

He could not face an eternity without her. He didn’t want to be completely alone.

He knew he had promised to be strong: to do her credit. One day, he would.

Not today, with her corpse still warm in his arms; with Aunt and Uncle crooning nonsense across a vast chasm of despair. Perhaps when his whole being did not scream silently for one more smile or kindly word to make him feel invincible. Perhaps then he would be the Lord of Etinsmere she wanted him to be.

But not before.

*

They laid her poor remains beneath a weeping cherry tree at the southernmost tip of the Westerwood garden, out of sight of the house and concealed from the curious by open fields and a screen of tall evergreens. A temporary resting place, Drinian assured anyone bold enough to question. Her bones would lie in Narnian soil someday, beside her lord’s and their murdered child’s. He owed her that, and so much more.

Yet Narnia had never seemed more distant. If he did go back there, it would be alone. Henceforward, every thing would be alone. 

He tried not to look beyond the next day; even the next hour’s lesson; or the next meal. To ponder a year, still less a lifetime, with no Mamma was more than he could bear.

Then the visits began. Uncle Dar’s Cousin Marna minced into the parlour with her long nose lifted as if everything before her smelled of the sewers, sitting primly on the edge of the chair Mamma used to use and muttering platitudes in a thready whistle of a voice. Even King Nain rode from Anvard, bringing half the Household in his wake. 

It was, Aunt told him grandly, a singular condescension. And had he not been robed in the deepest mourning, a black velvet tunic and a short mantle of the same fabric edged with dark grey fur, he would probably have had his ears boxed for muttering he would sooner not be condescended to, thank you all the same!

Deep down he admitted he deserved a thrashing. Aunt’s hand had been on his shoulder at the time, and that was as near a demonstration of affectionate support as he supposed she could make. 

They sat in the Main Parlour, its windows still shuttered to proclaim the house one of grief. The King’s booted feet drummed against the flagstones as he lounged in the lady of the manor’s comfortable chair, directly facing the high-backed wing chair placed for his young host. An outsider would have wondered, it seemed to Drinian, which of the pair was the more uncomfortable.

“Your Lordship must take comfort in the knowledge your unhappy mother suffers no more,” Nain volunteered, peering over the horn rims of his glasses to assess the reception for his trite words. Drinian mustered a taut smile.

“Aye, Sire,” he agreed. There didn’t seem to be much else he could say.

“And she need not grieve for her poor country.” The King pinched the bridge of his nose, arresting the slide of spectacles down its aquiline length. “I – ahem! It would seem I’m destined to be the bearer of ill tidings each time we meet!”

_What in the Lion’s name now?_ he wondered, panic jolting a thought Aunt would certainly deem unbecoming through his brain. “Your Majesty has news from Narnia?”

“Indirectly, aye.” Nain shuffled, unable to meet his troubled stare. “Via Galamaia, in fact. A ship and crew was hired there three weeks ago, we understand, to convey seven bold Lords of Narnia into uncharted ocean beyond the Lone Islands. Their names….”

“If Your Majesty will allow me.” A Galmian vessel and crew to carry Narnia on such an adventure? His father would be incandescent at such humiliation! “The Lords Octesian, Rhoop, Mavramorn, Argoz, Revelian, Bern and – and…”

“Restimar.” Auburn eyebrows arched at the confident drip of names from his tongue. “The last, they say, of the late King’s party. They’ve chosen a chancy voyage in waters unknown above probable murder at the hands of the new regime. Your father would be proud of their valour.”

“And sickened they choose a foreign-built vessel above those he planned for Narnia.” His blood raced at the prospect of such an adventure, but aboard a hired ship with an unknown crew… _what honour in this gadding about for Narnia?_

“The Protector’s dispensed with your father’s naval schemes: a short-sighted policy I’ll wager you set right one day, Oh, my nephew is honoured unfailingly as Crown Prince, his name still cried in formal proclamation. Their Lordships’ quest is blessed in his name, as son of their dead master: and with a Caspian once more enthroned, Etinsmere will rise! Why, with the experience you’ll garner in Our service – your aunt concedes it will be good for you to join the fleet, escape _this house of ancients_ , as she calls it – I fancy you’ll find yourself Lord Admiral of the Kingdom inside a week of his coronation!”

“Your Majesty is gracious.” He parroted the needful response, mindful of the leaden hopelessness in his heart. Miraz held all the power he craved, the last of his opponents having abandoned hope and fled over sea. His last connection with home, tenuous as it was, lay broken.

The coronation of King Caspian the Tenth might be a hundred years away.


	22. Twenty-One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mamma is lost to him. What of Narnia?

At least he had a promise of freedom to cling to, Drinian reminded himself twice a week thereafter, for without Mamma’s mischievous company Westerwood seemed more than ever a comfortable cage. He attended his lessons with a diligence that caused more alarm than satisfaction; was courteous to his dancing master; obedient to his guardians’ lightest word. 

It was unnatural, the household whispered. Even Aunt was heard to declare she missed her nephew’s insolence. The sooner a berth could be secured aboard a ship – any ship – of the Archenlandish fleet the greater the chance, everyone concluded, of Drinian heaving himself up from the dark, gloomy rut into which he had fallen.

Etiquette hindered him. For three months he was expected to isolate himself from court, and for the first time he recognised how his visits to Corin and Anelia at Anvard had cheered him. Caspian, Ninian and the others in Narnia – the Glasswater sisters, Marton Beaversdam’s son Lund, and Ailsa, daughter of Erimon, the executed lord of the Southern March – they were fading memories now, pushed away with a child’s relentless practicality. 

They were prisoners too. Their estates managed by the Protector’s cronies, they must be guarded and spied on in the name of their preservation. His freedom might be restricted but it was not, Drinian swore on wild gallops around quiet countryside, entirely illusory.

Then quite unexpectedly his liberty was increased through an invitation, in the name of the royal children, to join the grand summer festivities at Anvard. 

The castle was crowded with every noble family in Archenland and most (Anelia whispered) of its entertainers when they arrived, late in the afternoon and covered in dust. More than anything Drinian wanted a drink, a splash of cold water against his grimy face, and a few moments to accustom himself to society again.

One look across the drawbridge suggested those basic needs would have to wait. Jugglers on stilts greeted the Westerwood party, passing them on to tumblers in the courtyard and fiddlers in the Entrance Hall. The Princess raced to welcome them, her pale oval face flushed pink with excitement. “Thank the Lion there’s someone our own age come!” she trilled, hauling him by the hand from his elderly relations with no more than a brief reverence their way. “Corin’s saved some of the custards and cakes for you, so hurry! Father’s lords are long-lived, all their heirs are grown up and their grandchildren are either the most terrible bores, or babies! Come quickly, before the Lord Chamberlain can see us! We’re to watch the fireworks from Father’s dais tonight, and he says we may stay up until midnight!”

“Doubt we’ll keep our eyes open so long, unless the rockets are noisy,” he growled. She chortled.

“Oh, they will be! Father’s very fond of fireworks.”

“Must be a royal thing! King Caspian was the same. Your Highness.”

“Plaguey formality! We shan’t be disturbed here Drinian, so for the love of the Lion use my name!”

“As Your Highness wishes.” It was a joke he had shared with the gangling lad’s cousin and Corin, bouncing at the Nursery Suite door, snapped the bait as readily as Caspian ever had. Anelia shoved them both forcibly inside.

“ _Boys!_ ” she tutted. “Oh, don’t worry about paying respects to Father, Drinian! He knows you have been hidden from society a while, and he’d not hurl you back in friendless!”

He blinked against the emotion stirred by a kindly gesture that only emphasised the bitterness of his loss. “Is that lemonade?” he asked, grasping for any trivial escape. “I’m parched!”

“Allow me.” Anelia sloshed a generous measure into a handy red glass goblet, passing it to him before pouring a second for herself. “Oh, you’d like some too, Brother? You have longer arms than I – stretch over and I’ll pour some.”

“Don’t make an effort to move on my account,” Corin grumbled, catching his toe on the table’s foot as he reached her way. “Ow!” he yelped, his agitated hopping sending drops of liquid like rain spraying from his cup. “I _do_ wish I wasn’t such a damned oaf!”

“As I wish you were a better-tempered one.” King Nain, an oversized wasp in his yellow and black striped doublet, leaned against the door frame with folded arms, smiling at his horrified heir. “Keep such language in the nursery lad, lest your future subjects learn to dread your accession.”

“I imagine they already do, Sir.” Corin snorted, but the Princess had never in Drinian’s sight been abashed by offending her future sovereign. “Imagine the coronation! Corin shan’t manage the steps to his throne without falling over!”

“Just because you think you should make a better king than I…”

“Any bickering on these lines and you’ll both be watching the fireworks from your rooms,” barked Nain. Identical pouts forming on vastly different faces, the twins fell resentfully silent. 

“My Lord Drinian, We are glad to see you looking well.” Pale, Drinian knew; thinner too, as much from a growth spurt as grief. “If you’ve had time to refresh yourself from your journey, will you come with Us to the Great Hall? The festivities are about to commence with a great procession. Corin and Anelia, I expect you to take your places with discretion; and any assaults against your brother’s ankles, young lady, will result in no supper and no dancing. Do I make myself understood?”

*

The gracefully-landscaped gardens around Anvard sparkled, with lanterns strung along the castle walls and between trees garlanded with flowers turning the gentle countryside into a veritable fairytale with dusk’s descent. Cloaks and mantles cast aside as unnecessary on a balmy night the castle’s occupants spilled onto the lawns, chattering and laughing. His arms linked with the royal children's Drinian skittered along the gravel path leading toward a temporary stage from which the King and a chosen few would enjoy a gigantic firework display.

Everyone had eaten a huge banquet. Anelia, rubbing her tummy, was not the only person to be feeling queasy, and Drinian acknowledged to himself he hadn’t eaten so heartily in months. They had danced all afternoon, pausing only to eat and drink again, and he suspected it was the thick, sugared mead consumed more than the cakes, ices and sweetmeats that made his head feel light and his belly heavy now. Slumping into a seat between his friends he shielded his eyes from the dancing light of the multi-coloured lamps and waited for the show to begin.

“It’s going to be ghastly noisy,” Corin announced at the top of his voice. “Just look at those rockets! Father! Is it starting soon?”

“Aye, it will be---“

The end of the King’s sentence was lost under the whistle and crack of the first explosion. Corin whooped with delight, waving madly at a million sparks of silver light scattered overhead. “One would think him three, not eleven,” Anelia cackled, almost jumping off the dais as another firecracker erupted right above them. “Ow! We shall all be deaf by midnight!”

The lanterns were soon irrelevant, the sky brightened by a myriad of coloured explosions. Laughing, pointing and cheering, the crowd was too much engrossed to observe the arrival of a small figure in a long black robe who wormed his way through the throng to the steps of the throne. Not even Anelia, seated at his left hand, noticed her father rise, frowning, to descend with head bowed to hear the newcomer’s urgent muttering.

When he turned back to his guests the King’s cheerfulness had vanished. He clambered up the three small steps as if it hurt to lift his own slight weight. “My Lord, a moment?” he hissed against Drinian’s ringing ear. “Better you hear this - this _outrage_ privately, before his villainy is declared to the kingdom!”

“Sire?” A dozen panicked speculations clashed in his brain making Drinian unsteady as he rose, accepting the arm offered. He knew the messenger: Rilian of Pond’s Valley _again_ , the wings of black hair that fell across his cheekbones unable to obscure the smug, slack grin across his lean face. Any news from Narnia would be ill, he expected that. Tidings brought by a traitor’s lackey, he thought viciously, digging a toe into the softness of the turf, could only be worse.

Nain said nothing until they were enveloped in shadow from the castle walls. “In the Lion’s Name I’d as lief be in my tomb as reciting this news,” he grated. “But there’s naught for it. A week ago Prince Miraz was crowned King of Narnia at - so we are asked to believe – the urgent plea of his oppressed people, and the ardent recommendation of a united Great Council. I am sorry, Drinian. That murderous wretch is your country’s master and my nephew’s keeper, buttressed by all the authority of the Crown. Aye, rest against the wall a while. I know these tidings are the worst you could hear.”

“But not the least expected.” In the back of his mind he heard a metallic clang, the gates of his homeland banging shut against him. “To murder so many…. Miraz aimed for the crown from the start!”

“Aye.” Nain was relieved, he discovered. _Did he expect a child’s tantrum?_ “My nephew is named Heir Apparent, being nearest in blood to the usurper.”

“The better to hold him prisoner, Sire?” Narnia was closed to him so long as Miraz held sway. Drinian had always known that but the finality of this news cut, and he felt acutely for his dispossessed friend. “Lion be thanked Mamma never saw this!” he muttered, blinking back the tears that would insist on filling his eyes. “Who supported him at the crowning, Sire? What do the people say? Oh!”

He smacked himself resoundingly on the head. “Of course, if they marched through the streets of Beruna calling him traitor Miraz would never admit it! Sopespian, Glozelle, Solivar and the rest, they’ll grow fat on the rewards he gives them; and how many estates and honours does he have to buy loyalty with now? I – with Your Majesty’s permission I’ll retire for the night. I’ve no wish to hear that damned traitor crow of his paymaster’s triumph!”

“Of course. I’ll send your aunt to you.”

“I – thank you.” Though he often forgot it Aunt was Narnian too, and while the last thing he wanted was her frozen disapproval he loved her enough to spare her the shame of witnessing a hateful proclamation. “May I see…”

“A copy of the declaration will be made for your perusal, my Lord.” Nain squeezed his arm: grateful, Drinian guessed, that painful scenes had been avoided. “You’ve wit beyond your years, as I’ve noted many times. The murderer of so many good men needs more than a regent’s authority for his shield! No doubt you judge the villain rightly, this was his aim from the first day.”

The best he could manage was a curt nod. With another consoling press of the arm Nain let him go, knees locked against the tremors Drinian could feel starting deep in his gut. A pair of narrowed eyes bored into him: those of the villain’s crony he supposed, watching for a glimmer of weakness in Tirian’s heir. He called his father’s broad, strong face to mind, clinging to the blurred image. 

No Etinsmere would show frailty before a knave, still less a knave’s craven servant! Keeping his head high and his shoulders squared he reached the haven of his small guest chamber before the shudders convulsed him.

“There’s naught for it, Drinian,” he muttered into a downy pillow. “Find a berth in the fleet as soon as you’re able! The whole world is open, save the place you want to see.”

He could weep, he found, no more: not for himself, or Caspian; not even for Narnia. Though the finality of his exile weighed like a galleon’s great hull on his shoulders the very burden of it crushed the last trace of grieving from his heart. A Lord of Narnia he might always be, but there was neither profit nor honour in the title now. 

“Better a common sailor in a good King’s fleet than a cowed prisoner at Etinsmere!”


	23. Twenty-Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's nothing to hold him to the land any more...

“Remember, Drinian: you may be a child, but you’re an officer of the King’s Fleet now.” Dar banged his nephew heartily on the shoulder, surreptitiously checking the sturdiness of the leather jerkin he wore. “ _Tiger_ is the pride o’ the fleet; and though he’s an odd fellow, Kolin’s a worthy captain. Watch him well, never say more than _“Aye, Sir!”_ whatever his order, and let me hear good reports when you return from your first cruise."

“Remember to wear your waxed cloak in storms, and kindly _don’t_ return to Westerwood with a repertoire of curses to match your uncle’s,” his aunt continued, unable to repress a smile at his fidgeting impatience. Behind him, the gangway of the great galleon stood invitingly lowered. A tall officer and a pair of idlers peered from the deck, spinning away to look busy whenever someone glanced their way. “Very well, go aboard! Your uncle will see your land clothes stored at the Barwell house. Use it as your own when you return.”

“Thank you.” Impulsively he stretched the little way needful to kiss her powdered cheek, startled that she responded with a bashful hug. “For everything.”

“You are my brother’s son, and too like him for your own good.” She set him at arm’s length, surveying his hardy sailor’s attire of wool hose, coarse shirt and dull leather jerkin with a wistful smile. “And there’s naught to hold you to the land now! You’ve His Majesty’s blessing with your uncle’s and mine, so hurry along! Present yourself to your Captain, and do Narnia more credit than her present master does.”

“Shan’t be difficult so long as I’m honest,” he grunted, snapping a smart salute. With his carefully packed canvas sack of possessions tossed over his shoulder he turned and strode up the gangplank toward the smirking sailor on watch. “Drinian Etinsmere, reporting for the King’s service,” he stated, annoyed with the defiance he couldn’t help leaking into the words. The hatchet-faced mariner cocked his head, considered for a moment and then broke into an unexpectedly merry grin.

“Marix - Boson. Welcome aboard, lad. That all you’re stowing below?”

“A ship’s boy daren’t take much space.” He could feel the lazy roll of water beneath the keel, and suddenly the excitement he had been holding in check surged. Marix dragged the pack from him.

“You, Crain! Take the young gent’s bag below. Cap’n wants to see you directly and we’re to sail on tomorrow’s dawn tide. Been to sea a bit before, I hear?”

“Yes, Sir.” Instinct brought words tripping to his tongue but nerves, for a novelty, stopped them there. Uncle’s endorsement of Captain Kolin had, after all, hardly been overwhelming. Drinian linked his hands behind his back, willing himself to breathe deeply as he clambered up the poop ladder in the Boson’s wake. 

The Captain was awaiting them in his cabin. A square box unadorned with any trace of its occupier’s personality, it reminded Drinian more of a prisoner’s cell than a living space. “Thank you, Marix,” Kolin drawled, materialising from the corner in response to his crewman’s cheerful call. “You may wait outside. Come here, boy. You are the Lord Dar’s nephew, I understand?”

“Yes, Captain.” There was something oddly familiar about the way the man’s mouth dribbled down to the left, but Drinian was willing to swear he had never seen Captain Kolin in his life before. Of middling height and build, his sandy hair drooping limply over too-large ears, he would have been thoroughly unprepossessing had it not been for the carapace of steely self-certainty that shrouded him.

“By marriage?”

“Yes, Sir.” Fear receded under irritation. Drinian recalled peering through a glass at insects in much the same way Captain Kolin scrutinised him. _Shan’t do it again if this is how the poor creatures feel_ , he decided. 

“Hm.” For several seconds the Captain watched him struggle against the urge to fidget or blush under his minute attention. “Etinsmere. A title more than a family name, is it?”

“We use it as both, Captain, but yes. I am Lord of Etinsmere.” 

“Narnian nobility, eh? Proud of it, are we?”

“I was not schooled to be ashamed of my ancestry, Sir.” Wilfully disregarding every last thing Papa and Uncle had ever taught him, Drinian met his commanding officer’s stare unblinking. “But my title’s of little value in exile. I’d sooner earn my pay as a seaman than crawl with a beggar’s bowl to Anvard!”

“Bold for your years, boy. How old are you?”

“Not yet eleven, Captain.” _Count to ten_ , Aunt had often chided when his temper had begun to broil. Drinian was past twenty before Kolin harrumphed in reply.

“There are no favours granted to _birth_ aboard my ship, Etinsmere. You may be a grand Narnian gentleman but as captain I expect to be _king_ aboard. You will work under Boson’s direct instruction; and should he be dissatisfied, you will smart for it. Understood?”

“Aye, Captain.” He waited for the curt nod of dismissal, forcing himself to give a brisk salute before turning on his heel and stalking out. The instant the cabin door had swung shut, he whistled.

“Cap’n’s not fond o’ nobilities, lad, but don’t take it to heart.” Marix leaned against the bulkhead, openly laughing at his embarrassment. “’Spect he gave you a rare roasting, eh? Let the Old Man have his sport, that’s my advice – not often he gets to vent spleen on a proper gentleman.”

“So he takes against my rank, not my accent?” That was more of a relief than he cared to admit. Marix shrugged, guiding him down the main ladder into the bowels of the ship where hammocks were tucked tidily against the outer wall of the hull, small sacks of possessions hung on hooks beneath them. At the very stern of the ship Drinian’s belongings – sextant, telescope, waterproofed cloak and a few changes of clothes – had been stowed neatly away. 

“With half the fleet crewed by the pickin’s o’ the press we can scarce turn away a volunteer - even if he be a stranger! You’ll get used to the Old Man; and more to the matter, he’ll get used to you! My first ship was under your uncle’s command, y’ know.”

“Seems half the fleet served with Uncle at some time.” Ridiculously, he felt better for it. Marix was willing to give him his chance, accent and birthright notwithstanding. He doubted the Captain would be so forbearing.

Well, no Etinsmere had ever shirked a challenge! If mistakes were to be punished unduly, he would have to make sure they were not made at all. 

“Cap’n Kolin served him too.”

“Uncle never mentioned that!” Straightening abruptly, his head connected hard with a broad deck timber. “By the Lion, I must have grown again!”

“You’ll get used to it. Now, come and meet your shipmates.” Marix thumped him hard on the back. _A sailor’s gesture?_ The men of his family often used it, mariners all. 

“It’s blessed painful. Must remember not to do it myself,” he mumbled, careful to half-close his eyes as he traipsed up to the maindeck in Marix’s wake. Protected from the harshness of sudden daylight he was able to observe his new home more closely while the Boson summoned a dozen curious seamen for introductions, trusting his excellent memory to imprint their names.

Clean and bright, _Tiger_ screamed of a perfectionist captain and a well-trained crew. While he mumbled the appropriate pleasantries, Drinian tried this new puzzle’s pieces in his mind, searching for a fit. A weatherly vessel and a cheerful crew spoke of a captain as confident as Kolin tried to appear. Why, then, was the man so disturbed by the arrival of a foreign schoolboy whose exalted heritage was as valuable aboard as a barrel of stale rum?


	24. Twenty-Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Lord of Etinsmere, his place should be at the courts of the Northern Kings. Fortunately for Drinian, the galleon Tiger offers a congenial alternative...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Henceforward, weeks and months might pass between recorded events - otherwise Drinian's adventures would take longer to write that to live!

He quickly stopped worrying about Kolin’s implacable contempt, caught up in the frenzied business of preparing a galleon for sea. There were stores to load; water butts to roll ashore and refill at the well in the town square; wooding parties to send out into the country, coming back laden with baskets of twigs as the sun set. Tramping around the woods, dodging rain showers and stopping every second step to snap up suitably dry tinder had not been foremost in his mind, Drinian conceded, when imagining his naval career, but at least he was granted ample time to learn the names and dispositions of his shipmates.

The trusted ones, at least.

His trip to the well was escorted by a phalanx of archers, arrows set on their strings as they shepherded eight crewmen rolling barrels. “’S all in our honour, that,” muttered Darin, red-eyed and flabby of face. “And there’s the scurvy den o’ villainy we was in the gutter outside when they found us!”

“Aye, and who was it spent the last of our coin at gaming?” his cousin, Sarin muttered, aiming a swift kick at Darin’s exposed ankle. “Small chance we’d ‘ave of escapin’ today! Every one o’ those arrows has my name carved in its shaft!”

“Less chatter and more heavin’ on that pump ‘andle, you drunken dog!” If he had been less charitable, Drinian would have been sure the Mate was enjoying the chance to bawl curses at the recalcitrant pair. He dragged the heavy pump arm down, skipping back to avoid the water splashing over his bucket’s side. “Aye, and don’t go sloshin’ ‘alf that water in the street, boy! The loss will come from your ration, not mine!”

“What, you’ll take water instead o’ rum, Topasio?” Brawny, hook-nosed Wat, his long dark hair held back from a bronzed brow with a tattered strip of grey cloth, flicked a few drops from the barrel he was filling at the smaller man. “More for the rest of us, then! Not a drinker yet, Drinian?”

“Doubt I ever shall be where rum is concerned.” He shuddered every time he smelled the potent spirit, reminded of its harsh taste that last grisly night at Etinsmere. “If the Captain authorises it, you’re welcome to my daily ration!”

“More likely keep it to ‘isself.” The offer won him a genial cuffing and, he suspected, more goodwill than his eagerness to assist in any menial task. A few nights’ huddled in his corner had proven Uncle Dar right on that point: rum as much as fear of the lash kept the former landsmen of the Tiger docile as their commander could wish; and Wat, a mariner of ten years’ standing, was more susceptible than most.

*

On the sixth day after joining he set his chest to one of the capstan’s bars and leaned with all his slight weight against it, marching in time with three companions around the hub step by painfully slow step, until he could feel the heavy chain tug and the giant anchor pull free of the harbour’s cloying mud. With Topasio beating time against the bulwark rail, hoarse voices fore and aft raised in spitting out a song that emerged more as a series of grunts than a recognisable tune. Drinian was thankful he didn’t know it when it took all the breath he could expel simply to keep moving against the dragging weight of the chain coiling around the capstan’s base. How any of them could find the strength to sing bewildered him.

“You’ll learn lad, when there’s a bit more flesh on them scrawny arms.” Crain, a man of Westerwood and (unusually) a volunteer, insinuated himself between the Drinian and the Captain, sneakily supporting the boy’s sagging weight. “Don’t let the Old Man see you flaggin’! Got a right wasp in ‘is cap over you, he ‘as! Don’t like nobilities, if you follow.”

“Boson said the same thing.” A few deep breaths meant he could stand erect without support, and Drinian studied the powerful fellows around him with alarm. If simply raising the anchor left him flabby as a discarded rag doll, how in the Lion’s name was he to make himself useful? 

“Wager ‘e didn’t tell you why! Aye Captain, I’ll see the boy up to the mainyard! Not scared o’ heights, Drin?”

“No.” _Hang it!_ His upper arms burned, and they expected him to race hand-over-hand to the top? But Kolin was curling a thin lip, openly daring him to protest, and half the company were watching. “Why? Are you?”

“Young pup!” Laughing, the sailor hurled himself at the lattice of rope, Drinian half a stride ahead. Though he lacked Crain’s strength the older man struggled to match his agility, and their hands curled around the horizontal trunk of the yard at almost the same instant.

“Good lad,” Crain approved as they swung across to perch side by side. Drinian kept his gaze on the clouds above for a few seconds, giving time to steady himself before looking down to the minute figures scurrying on deck a terrifying distance below.

“Captain Kolin’s said to be the son of a great lord, see,” Crain murmured, tipping a wink to the topman next in line. “And stop your ears flappin’ Master Lain, ‘t ain’t like you’ve not heard the same rumour!”

“That his mother was a laundress cast from the castle when her mistress found them out?” Drinian guessed, pleased by their slack-jawed awe. “Hardly an uncommon occurrence! Narnian history’s littered with such things, and I doubt Archenland’s is different! The Conqueror himself sired a daughter that way, and acknowledged it, too! As well for his succession it was a girl, so my grandfather said.”

“They say the Old Man’s father has a place at court,” Dorix, with his sleek short hair, trimmed beard and perfect diction, piped up from the farthest end of the yard. “And his mother swore vengeance when her lover sent her packing in naught but her bloody petticoats. Coo! Last time His Majesty came to Barwell, _what_ a palaver we had! Captain refusing to go ashore, Mate in a panic… of course, there was naught for it. The King wished to see all his captains, so the Old Man had to go. Did we smart for it the next cruise! Let fall, lads!”

The sail tumbled down like a giant curtain, hastily secured by a cluster of men at its foot. “You’ve a place at court on shore, Drin?”

“As an irritant to Narnia, no more.” His heart shrivelled with the acknowledgement, even as the casual shortening of his name raised a smile. Most of the crew had fallen into the habit and though his aunt (and most likely his mother) would have groaned, Drinian liked it.

 _Drinian_ , after all, was the Lord of Etinsmere. Even before meeting Captain Kolin, he had recognised that noble gentleman would fit ill aboard an Archenlandish ship of war.

“Whatever the cause, never let the Old Man hear tell of your going there if you’ve a care for his approval.”

“I’m hardly likely to win that Dorix, but thank you for the advice.” Impertinence amused them, he had discovered; and if his commander was unlikely to become an ally, the tolerance of the lower deck would be all the more vital. 

Drinian knew he had made a promising start. Even Topasio slapped him on the back as the galleon skirted the archipelago of islands off the river mouth and tacked southward into a placid sea. A week’s residence had left him feeling more comfortable in the cramped squalor of the hold than two years at Westerwood had managed: so if he could only bite his tongue against the patronising stares of a resentful bastard, he assured himself, His Archenlandish Majesty’s galleon _Tiger_ would suit him as well as any residence beyond Etinsmere ever could.

*

Even Kolin improved in his estimation as the cruise drew on, taking the galleon beyond the Bight of Calormen and into the near ocean to skirt the edge of Terebinthian waters. The ship glistened for a reason, her decks scrubbed each morning; and every man was sent before dinner to sharpen his cutlass against the spinning grindstone or shoot a dozen arrows at targets thrown out astern by the Topasio. Drinian attended every task he was entrusted with mute diligence, determined to earn respect, however grudging.

In everything bar mathematics, he succeeded admirably.

“You’re a natural sailor, I’ll grant you that,” Topasio acknowledged the evening they turned west for port, having sighted nothing more threatening than a pair of fishing smacks and a Galmian trading barge. “Knot an’ splice with the best of ‘em; race to the fightin’ top like a frightened monkey; read the weather as well as I do; and not afraid to scar your fine hands with all this haulin’ about on ropes. But lad, until you learn to take three from twelve without leavin’ eight, you’ll always be at peril of landin’ your ship athwart the shoals off the Winding Arrow! Sarin! Enough o’ your mournful caterwaulin’s man, we’re homeward bound from a month’s wasted wenchin’ time! Let’s have a tune the younglings can dance to! Aye, join them, Drinian but remember: we’ll have none o’ that _courtly prancing_ here!”

“Lion be thanked!” Sarin, whose surliness had faded under appreciation of his limited musical talents, struck up an energetic scratch on the fiddle and half the crew charged the maindeck to jump and skip, slapping hands and hallooing with abandon. _Aunt would be horrified_ , Drinian mused as he threw himself into the centre of the scrum. 

Lanterns set high at the masthead, bow and sternpiece cast strange pulses of shadow across deck, shifting in answer to wave and wind. The tempo of the melody changed but the dancers ignored it, leaping and slapping hands to their own rhythm while the older, the more staid and the higher-ranked looked on. Drinian’s breath came fast; gooseflesh prickled arms bared against the night’s increasing chill. When the men around him began to bellow the strange words of a song he recalled Uncle imploring another crew not to teach he was able to join in, brows furrowing under the laughing looks his elders shot his way. 

His one visit to Galamaia had not implied the girls there were any more courteous than those of Narnia or Archenland. The words bellowed by his companions suggested otherwise, though quite what was deemed _gallant_ in dancing over tables in one’s petticoats, Drinian could not begin to imagine.


	25. Twenty-Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's settled in well with his new company. Facing action for the first time, how will Drinian fare?

“Pirates.” Darin groused midway through their third cruise, slamming his wooden bowl and mug down beside Drinian’s at their mess table. “Six weeks in waters they say are infested with the blighters, an’ not a sign! Waste our arrows in practise, that’s what we do!”

“Pr’aps they see our size and scuttle back to port?” Sarin suggested, idly stirring the gloop known by the galley master as _porridge_ until it stuck messily to his spoon. “I ‘ope so, at least! You may long for a jaw to crack, but I’d sooner evade more violence than Boson’s flyin’ ‘and, thank you.”

“Might yet try the strength o’ the Old Man’s chin if ‘e sneers down that great long beak of ‘is an’ mutters _peasant_ when I dares to cuss again,” his cousin complained, loud enough to earn a kick from his more experienced neighbour, Crain. Drinian chewed a coarse chunk of undercooked grain thoughtfully.

“Small wonder he’s so dour, hating us all equally,” he murmured, covering the wry words from the passing Mate with his grimy fingers. “Despising the peasant as much as the lord must limit his friendships on shore!”

His messmates’ laughter brought curious stares their way. Drinian met the narrowed gaze of Kolin’s deputy with a guileless smile that amused his companions even more.

“’ave your ‘ead for insolence, ‘e would,” Wat muttered as he shoved away his scraped bowl. “You’re scrubbin’ the decks with me, Drin?”

“Aye.” His fingers were scraped from gripping the sandstone block soaked with water with which the deck planking was rubbed each day. “If it cheers the Old Man to see a Narnian nobleman on his knees, he might yet be kinder to you miserable peasants! I’ll wash up, Crain – you did it every meal yesterday. Meet you on the fo’c’sle in ten minutes, Wat?”

“Aye, m’Lord!” Ducking from the spoon Drinian aimed at the gold hoop hanging from his right ear ring the sailor rolled his way from the table, leaving his friends to stow the furniture and utensils below until dinnertime.

*

His back ached damnably, and the stone seemed determined to slide from his sweating palms every second stroke but, Drinian congratulated himself, a visiting admiral would have to approve the shine his efforts were bringing to the worn timbers of the maindeck. The hiss of the stone and swish of the sluicing water from Wat’s pail were hypnotic, lulling his movements into a steady rhythm, and the exertion no longer exhausted him as it first had. Not only would he be taller when next he rode through Westerwood’s gates he thought smugly, but Aunt would find him broader too.

“Sail in sight!”

He stopped at full forward stretch, his head automatically cocked for the identifying shout that must quickly follow. From the corner of his eye he saw Wat’s foot begin to tap off the seconds as they ticked too-slowly by. The hum of workaday activity ceased. Uneasily aware of the faint prickling of fine hairs along his arm, Drinian could feel the tension of every man aboard rebounding up from the decks and off the bulwarks.

“A schooner, Cap’n! Terebinthian rigged and tackin’ our way!”

“All hands to battle stations!” Before Kolin had finished the command buckets, cloths and tools were being tossed away. A few men seized the archer’s tools which lay in readiness at the mast’s foot before tearing up the ratlines to the fighting top; others charged below in search of cutlasses, shields and additional bows and arrows. For a split second Drinian stared, his mind racing through the instructions he had been given. Then a massive hand dragged him upright, and with a shove in the back to start him on his way, he was running with the crowd to buckle on a breastplate and snatch up his sword.

Where in the Lion’s name was his station? Stumbling under his armour’s unfamiliar weight he spotted Crain waving from his position at the foot of the poop ladder, relief making him lightheaded. _Of course!_ An aspiring officer should place himself at the heart of any fight, ready to defend the wheel or to leap across to the pirate’s lower deck at the Captain’s command.

He couldn’t help but ponder the idiocy of wrapping steel around his chest a few minutes before possibly being asked to jump across a sliver of open sea. _If a fellow were to miss his footing…_

“Stop it!” The schooner was ranging toward them, and from overheard he caught the first sibilant hiss and thwack of arrow leaving string. It took all the self-restraint he possessed not to duck.

Sarin did. “Stand firm, you damn’ cowardly lubber!” Marix screamed over Drinian’s shoulder. “That were one of ours!”

“That wasn’t!” The pirate vessel was smaller than he had imagined, her sail patched and her hull pockmarked where she had crashed alongside her victims. For the first time in his life, Drinian realised a ship under full sail could be something other than beautiful.

“Take cover!” Topasio’s shout was hoarse. Hefting one of the heavy steel shields which had been hung from the starboard rail over his head, Drinian flinched against the pattering rain of missiles his imagination conjured up. “Miserable scurvy dogs!” the Mate howled when the pirates’ assault fell short. “Every man to his bow! Shoot the scum down, lads!”

He had never, he discovered, practised at the archery butts as diligently as he ought. Drinian’s fingers trembled against the shaft of the first arrow he tried to set, and the tentative twang as it released from the string did nothing to bolster his knock-kneed fright. 

The second volley was better from _Tiger’s_ men. Drinian craned his neck, watching first one pirate then another, a lad barely older than himself he guessed, topple forward to slump against the rail. Instinctively he drew back his bow again, waiting for the order. The moment it came his arrow was arcing into the hazy morning sky. 

He dared not follow its flight. _No time for morbid curiosity in war!_

A saying of the Conqueror’s. He paused with bow raised, shocked it should come to him at such a moment. _Mallian’s teachings ingrained themselves better than the old dullard will ever know!_

The schooner heeled away under cover of another ragged volley; and this time hardly a man bothered to seek protection while the helmsman spun the galleon’s great wheel through his fingers, turning her on to a pursuing course south toward Terebinthia.

“Shan’t catch the witch,” Crain observed, setting down his weapon before the order could be cried from the poop. “With that speed she’ll reach shallower water than we can sail within an hour, and what d’ we do then? Loiter off their lair in the ‘ope they’re mad enough to face us?”

“I should ‘ope not. We’re due back at Barwell a week from now an’ I’ve a pressin’ ‘pointment to keep.” Wat ambled from his post forward to leer out at the escaping ship. “For shame, Crain, you’d ‘ave Mistress Nin kept waitin’? Needs a lick o’ paint and a proper careening, that lady.”

“The pirate, or Mistress Nin?” Marix wanted to know, hurrying for the poop to make his report to the Captain. Not wanting his ignorance to stand out, Drinian dutifully joined his comrades’ laughter. “Sail ‘andlers, get your lazy backsides aloft there! Cap’n, no injuries to report, Sir.”

*

Two hours later the decks were finally scrubbed down and the party charged with their cleaning dismissed to their own affairs. Drinian drifted forward to the fo’c’sle where a line of washing danced in the freshening breeze, guiltily aware one of his jerkins lacked a brass button, and that two of his shirts were frayed at the hem.

A silver needle scraped the soft skin of his forearm, trailing white thread in his wake. Who, he wondered, would have thought it so infernally difficult to slide the wetted end of a thread through a narrow slot? His eyes were younger then Wat’s; his fingers leaner and longer. Yet without the big man’s assistance, his garments would still be awaiting repair when he next went to Westerwood!

He pulled his belongings from the line and squatted in the lee of the snarling bow figure, fumbling to hold a bright button in place with his left hand while manipulating the needle with his right. A curse bubbled at the back of his throat; the button slipped and skittered across deck, and as he lunged to retrieve it his grip on the needle relaxed. 

“Damn and blast the infernal thing!”

“Such language was best kept below deck, Etinsmere.” He dragged himself upright, biting off a grim smile at the inevitability of Captain Kolin being sole witness to his misfortunes. “An officer should retain his composure at all times, however a man of _rank_ may cuss the lower orders.”

“I beg pardon, Sir.” Had he been reared in his father’s house Drinian mused sulkily, the Captain might know a true gentleman only cussed his equals, never those less fortunate. “My court education ought to have included lessons in sewing!”

“And observation of where one’s arrows fall?” Kolin smirked down at him, and if he thought Drinian’s head bowed in shame, so much the better for both. “You recovered yourself respectably I’ll grant you, but the next time we face a vicious enemy I expect to see better leadership in one whose _court education_ surely included lessons in how to guide and inspire. Attend to your errand, boy; and present yourself to Master Bowman tomorrow for shooting practice at the fighting top.”

“Aye, Sir.” Curling his fingers back into his palms, Drinian kept his head down until the Captain’s shadow had dissolved from the deck.

There was justice in the man’s criticism, he knew. Panic had frozen his mind for a terrible moment, and his shooting had suffered thanks to the flock of birds flapping in his belly through the encounter. As an officer if not a Narnian lord, he ought to have performed better.

Angrily he dug his needle through softened leather, chanting blasphemies in his head as he brought it up and into the pad of his thumb. Disappointment in himself was painful enough to bear. That the Old Man should find his opportunity to gloat…

“I’m more of a proud nobleman than I thought,” he grunted, biting his vicious way through the tight cotton securing his button in place. “If the jealousy of a bitter devil like that upsets me! Lion Alive! Hi, Dorix! How _does_ one hem a shirt, do you know?”


	26. Twenty-Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two very different worlds collide. At their join, Drinian is about to gain a rather more sympathetic understanding of his commanding officer...

Barwell buzzed with excitement. “The King and ‘alf the court ride down to inspect the fleet Drin, did you not ‘ear?” Crain bellowed from the shore, his ruddy complexion heightened by the exertion of rolling a brace of barrels to the well and back. “The smell o’ paint in the town square you wouldn’t believe, and they’re hangin’ the bunting and banners from every bloomin’ tree! No idlin’ when you go ashore, else they’ll wrap a flag ‘round your lofty ‘ead!”

“As if I’ve time to stand and gossip!” Swinging from the landward side Drinian waved his paintbrush in salute, frowning at his gaudy handiwork on the scarlet panel bearing the galleon’s name. “So that’s why we’re ordered to polish every nail head that shows between the planks!”

“Aye, and we’ve been five years without a royal inspection.” Hanging over the stern rail, Marix blew on the sheet of gold leaf with which he was edging _Tiger’s_ T. “Cap’n’s gone ashore for his orders. ‘Spect that means we’ll be boarded and asked to show off our smart sail ‘andlin’, so long as the weather’s calm!”

“Fancy the Old Man’s ‘oping for a storm!”

“That’ll do, Wat; and yes - I remember His Majesty’s last inspection just as well as you.” Marix rolled his eyes expressively. “Careful with that brush, lad! Lion bless us, look what the tavern masters are about, tartin’ up the premises with fresh paint an’ perfume! The wenches’ll be chargin’ double for a year to pay for all the fine new clothes they’ll be demandin’!”

*

“Our orders are to anchor off the river mouth and salute His Majesty’s vessel as it tacks through the fleet.” Kolin stood erect in the middle of his darkened cabin, turned from the sternlights in the hope, Drinian guessed, that shadow would conceal the tension in his irregular features from the huddle of assembled officers. He ran a hand through his lank sandy hair, piercing first one then another with a challenging stare. “An hour beyond lunch, the royal party will board. His Royal Highness, we understand, is especially eager to tour our lady – Etinsmere, you’ll ensure he does _not_ fall in a barrel of rum, nor trip a man of our company over the side! His Majesty will admire our smart seamanship then return to his own vessel to lead the flotilla to port.

“In the evening, I shall lead six men to my Lord Admiral’s residence where a banquet will be held; and on the morning following, all hands will man the rigging to cheer His Majesty’s party on their way. Topasio, see the rum casks are guarded; and Marix, I expect the men to look like sailors, not vagabonds. Are we fit to sail?”

“Aye, Cap’n!” The Mate’s foot tapped rapidly. His glee was infectious: Drinian could see grins spreading over the faces of the Boson, Master Bowman and Dorix, present as the senior topman and trying unsuccessfully to hide himself behind Topasio’s greater bulk. Kolin nodded. 

“Very well. Weigh anchor and set course for the northern tip of the archipelago. _Tiger_ is to take station at the vanguard, the remainder of the flotilla taking their positions from us. I do _not_ expect mistakes.”

“Aye, Captain.” Filing from the cabin and out onto the poop, Drinian sucked a deep breath, deliberately flexing his tight shoulders. He was never timid, but being in the Old Man’s company always made him believe he might learn to be.

“You know the Prince, Drin?” Marix seized his shoulder, fingers digging deep enough to bruise. “I hear tell of ‘im bein’ a right oddity!”

“He’d grant you that himself.” Instinctively he checked the polish of the brass handrail, stifling a grin at the distorted reflection it threw back. “If there’s a loose tail o’ rope or a broom left lying on deck, I’ll lay odds on Corin tripping over it! I wonder if the Princess rides with the King’s party?”

*

_Tiger_ glistened from stem to stern as she swung at anchor within sight of the river’s gaping mouth, red and gold pennants streaming from her masthead and glinting shields hung along the length of her landward side. Beyond her sternpiece in a large V of galleons, brigs, barques and schooners, the remainder of Archenland’s small fleet flew loyal signals in greeting to the royal galleon _Golden Mist_ which inched under half sail from the Winding Arrow’s maw. “Confounded damn’ fool name for a ship,” Marix dripped from the corner of his mouth. “Since when was mist golden, anyway? Wet, grey an’ miserable, that’s what it is!”

“Ship’s company! Salute!” Topasio hollered.

Kolin deputed the bawling of orders to his deputy on a daily basis knowing his thin tones failed to carry, but on this occasion he did have a legitimate excuse. He stood at the entryport with his hands clasped behind a ramrod spine, bowing low as to the whistling of a dozen pipes King Nain stepped tentatively from his personal galleon’s siderail to _Tiger’s_ , with Corin and Anelia leading a troupe of finely-robed courtiers in his wake. Drinian scanned the crowd, hoping for a glimpse of his uncle in their midst.

“Lord Admiral’s ‘ere, so the Lord Dar’d be as welcome as a kraken in a crowded port.” Marix pursed his thick lips, eyeing the unfortunate Gurin as if he might recently have crawled from a crust of mouldy bread. “Stand to attention me lads, we’re to be presented!”

The shuffling of feet in their line stilled. Drinian risked a peep at his neighbours, amused by the tension he read in their blank faces. If it had been Caspian the Ninth checking the polish of his boots he would have been apprehensive; but King Nain’s own would most likely be mud-smudged even at sea! 

The monarch’s jovial pleasantries filtered down the queue of waiting seamen. They made, Drinian could hardly help but notice, a strikingly vibrant counterpoint to the monotone civilities of his host. 

“Ah, my Lord of Etinsmere!” Nain exclaimed, snatching the hand Drinian would have lifted to his brow. “I trust this scapegrace does credit to his exalted heritage, Captain? Gurin, you remember Dar’s nephew, of course? We hear high praise from the Mate of your conduct, young man! How do you find life at sea? No special privileges, eh?”

“None, Sire.” His eyes slid left of their own volition to the pinched visage of his commander. Nain beamed.

“As you would wish it, I know! Your relations command me convey their warmest regards; and you’ll join us at Anvard when leave’s granted? Captain, you _will_ be bringing my Lord Drinian to the Admiral’s banquet, of course?”

“Of course, Your Majesty.” At that instant he would as gladly have taken the brat to his execution: it was obvious in his taut posture and grinding teeth. 

Drinian had sometimes wondered at the Prince’s blithe insensitivity. Now he knew where it came from. “Although it would appear _unusual_ for so young a crewman to be favoured above his shipmates.”

King Nain’s lips thinned dangerously. “The Prince and his sister would take it as a great kindness to have their friend’s company,” he observed coolly.

Kolin blenched. “I would deny Their Royal Highnesses no pleasure in my power, Sire,” he bit out, keeping his gaze somewhere over the King’s right shoulder. Drinian narrowed his eyes, surveying the knot of whispering gentlemen in the Captain’s line of sight.

The Lord Chamberlain and his Deputy, glistening in the bright blue tunics of their grand offices; Farix, the Prince’s tutor; bent, dribbling ancient Belmar, once the Lord Chamberlain and kept since retirement at Anvard on his master’s kindness. Lord Gurin and his assistant – what _was_ the simpering dandy’s name? Not _Clot_ , even if that was Uncle’s designation in his last letter! 

The sight of them was causing embarrassingly obvious havoc with Kolin’s blood pressure. He went pale, then red, then as white as if he were about to faint, and all with King Nain chatting animatedly at his side. 

_They say the Old Man’s father has a place at court._

“Ouch!” he breathed, astonished by the compassion twisting his gizzard. The King would not be wantonly cruel, but were he to bring the callous sire aboard an abandoned son’s ship… small wonder the Captain’s hands were rigid!

“With Your Majesty’s consent, we will weigh anchor,” Kolin offered tightly. Nain beamed.

“At your convenience, my dear Captain. My Lord Drinian, when your duties permit, you’ll stand watch – that _is_ the term, I believe? – over Their Highnesses? Corin and Anelia, you are under the orders of our hosts as we all are – and don’t tug on those ropes, boy! You might bring the whole rig down onto our heads!”

“Those are the signal halyards, Sire: there’s no harm can be done. Topasio! Signal the fleet. Weigh anchor and prepare to sail.”

“Signalmen!” The crew sprang into action, Drinian leading the charge to the flag locker, pulling out strings of gaily coloured bunting to be raised to the masthead. As he hooked the correct flags into sequence, each one representing a word or phrase, his quick ear caught the stirring of a breath behind him. 

“Looks deuced complicated,” Prince Corin remarked amicably, taking swift evasive action from his friend’s sharp turn. “Not in the way, are we?”

“If Your Highness would take a step back, I’ll run these up the halyards before Boson here damns my tardiness.” Exasperation was no equal for Corin’s guileless good temper, and Drinian rolled his eyes at Marix while nimbly knotting the ropes in place. “If you’d like to be useful, catch the tail o’ that rope and heave when I tell you to!”

“Aye, Sir! Ouf!” The signal inched skyward despite their lusty pulling and Corin staggered backward, letting the line slip from his burning palm. “Small wonder you’re broader around the shoulders than when I saw you last! Hi, Anelia! Give a hand!”

“ _Please_ don’t encourage him, Drinian.” An exotic butterfly in midwinter could hardly have looked more out of place than the gilded princess, her dark hair coiled under a net of woven gold, on the warship’s deck. “We promised Father we should stand quiet and not get in the way. You _will_ introduce your colleagues to us?”

“Gladly Ma’am, when I’m down from the top.” With the signals flying he needed no prod from a superior to send him clambering into rigging. Anelia’s hands flew to her mouth, not quite catching her squeal.

“You have to go all the way up _there?_ ” he heard her yelp after him. Racing at his side, Crain chortled.

“Not got much clue, landsfolk,” he muttered. “S’pose royal lubbers are dimmer than most!”

“Not all of them.” Drinian’s thoughts flew north to Caspian, goggle-eyed and gleeful on his rare sailing trips along the Etinsmere coast. The King had pretended not to know his chief minister encouraged the heir’s awestruck fascination with the family’s element: secretly pleased, so Papa had claimed, to see some spirit in the boy. He fumbled with the sailropes, stunned by the surge of misery that swamped him. Lion bless him, would he _never_ stop pining for what was gone?

He lingered aloft as late as he dared, painfully conscious of his swollen lip and glassy eyes. Corin might be a good-hearted oaf but his sister had the shrewdness of a demon, and under such trying circumstances he dared not draw the Captain’s eye his way. All the tides of the unknown seas seemed to slosh in his stomach as he descended to deck, pinning on a smile that pinched his jaw. He had thought, in spite of the Old Man’s bristling, that he welcomed their presence.

Now, he could barely wait to wave His Majesty’s party off on the road to Anvard.

*

His gloom deepened back in port, exacerbated by the humming glee of shipmates washed, combed and dressed in dark grey tunics trimmed with scarlet, the formal uniform of the fleet none had ever worn in a combined twenty years of service. “Coo!” Wat chortled as they marched through the town square behind Captain and Mate. “Me at a royal feast, who’d ’ve ever saw that comin’?”

“Same fool as imagined you without those whiskers down your chin!” Dorix countered, his rolling gait causing him to bump his young neighbour on every other step. “Drin, what’s the etiquette for these things? Speak when spoken to and don’t drink soup from your knife?”

“And always say _thank you_ to the servants. Aunt insists on it.” He lifted a startled gaze to the two-storied square of metal-toned stone which fronted the street before them. “Is this the Admiral’s house?”

Unadorned by carving, brick or ironwork, it was as forbidding a residence as any tyrant’s castle “Looks more like a fortress,” muttered the small, straggle-haired man at his back. “Aye, or a cell!”

“And Darin’s been in enough o’ them to know!” Marix exclaimed

“Silence!” Captain Kolin stopped so abruptly poor Wat had no chance of evading him. “Topasio, you will ensure these petty villains do not disgrace their ship. My Lord!”

“Captain Kolin, good, excellent! Their Royal Highnesses have been _most_ anxiously awaiting your party’s arrival.” Thin and damp, Lord Barsin bypassed the Captain’s proffered hand midway through his sentence, clasping Drinian’s instead in a clammy grip. “My Lord of Etinsmere, pray come with me. Kolin, your fellows are to be seated at my table. This way, young man: you’re placed at the King’s left side.”

Two small holes began to burn into his back. The Captain’s resentful stare, Drinian knew without glancing around. “My Lord, it would be a courtesy to Captain Kolin as the senior officer present,” he hissed. The scrawny shoulders before his eyes raised in a convulsive shrug.

“You’re not afloat now! This fellow Kolin has no seniority on shore, and His Majesty most _specifically_ requested Your Grace’s presence at his elbow.” Barsin peered back to frown over Drinian’s shoulder, averting his eyes the moment they caught the sulking officer’s. “Your Highness!”

“Drinian, _at last!_ ” Anelia, resplendent in ivory silk with a shimmering jade underskirt, hurried forward with hands outstretched. “Thank you, my Lord Chamberlain! Goodness, you ought to wear the uniform more often, it’s rare to see someone it actually suits! Here, you’re sitting between Papa and me, with Corin opposite. We shall protect you from the glares I see your horribly _grim_ Captain keeps sending!”

“The Captain outranks me, Anelia. ‘Tis hardly proper for a ship’s boy to take precedence over his commander.” 

“Oh, _really!_ ” Her high laughter, he was certain, drew the attention of half the room to her trilling rebuke. “As if a base-born seaman ever outranked a lord! Father, did you ever hear such nonsense!”

“Concern for your officer’s sensitive corns does you credit, my Lord.” Superb in royal purple trimmed with white fur, a thick gold circlet perched on the tips of his ears, Nain patted his arm. “But I’ll wager there are _rumours_ aboard a galleon! You understand why it would be improper to invite… well, a fellow of _his_ heritage to dine with Us. Ah, Gurin! Your Lordship must excuse me, I’m summoned by our host.”

“Of course, Sire.” Inwardly wincing, he allowed Anelia to drag him to their seats on the left of Nain’s cushioned throne. 

Even the Conqueror (acknowledged in the histories to have been a terror of a man with a temper to match) had shown his illegitimate offspring fair consideration, marrying her to a nobleman and seeing her honoured as his blood (if not her dam’s) deserved. Of course, Drinian recalled his grandfather declaring, had the child been a boy he would as likely have had it smothered with a pillow; but that was hardly the point.

“Better to have ordered him out to sea than hang him out for public scorn,” he muttered into his mead cup, disguising his awareness of Kolin’s mutinous scrutiny beneath long lashes. “If they can offer no acknowledgement, surely they could at least muster respect!”


	27. Twenty-Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back at sea, his status is a barrier Drinian must find a way to overcome - even if the Fates do conspire to remind him of it..

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tags have been updated to allow for the beginnings of some proper hand-to-hand combat at sea. The violence isn't especially graphic, but it's going to happen sporadically from now on.

He suffered for his status when the _Tiger_ sailed again, two weeks having done little to soothe the Captain’s indignation, but to the astonishment of his comrades Drinian accepted a day’s short rations for being a minute late from his cot without demur. “Better he kicks me than any of you,” he explained, accepting the crumbling biscuit Wat produced from a pocket with a grateful grin. “Here - take my tot for it. Rum on an empty stomach’s a recipe for a woollen head, and I dare not be late on deck tomorrow! No, take it, you’re risking the lash to smuggle sustenance down to me.”

“Mate’s on duty an’ won’t say owt even if ‘e catches us.” Freeing the grubby cloth that held back his long hair, Wat swung himself into his hammock to suck greedily on the small measure of rum. “May not be as loud as old Marix in praisin’ you Drin, but you’ve an ally in Topasio for what little it’s worth! Who was it spied that squall chasin’ us from the south yesterday? Not Master Mate, still groggy from a week’s carousin’ ashore! You’ll be promoted from _Boy_ to _Seaman_ in no time if Topasio gets ‘is way: more damn responsibility, that’s all it is, so don’t get cocky wi’ your messmates!”

“If I did the Old Man would have my hide.” The biscuit fell apart against his tongue and stuck to his teeth, but it was manna to a hungry lad. With a lusty yawn Drinian stretched up to crush out the flickering lantern hanging above his feet. “As he will if I’m late tomorrow! Goodnight, Wat.”

*

“Sail in sight – correction, two sail!”

The hail from the fighting top made his stomach lurch every time, an excited dread Drinian was beginning to suspect would never change. He snatched his telescope from the shelf behind the compass box, ready on the balls of his feet to run forward at the officer of the watch’s command. Topasio nodded briskly. “Sarin, call the Captain. I want a full report Drin, before he gets to the wheel.”

“Aye, Sir!” The Mate was worried: the casual nickname betrayed it. Two ships in waters far from anywhere? Close together too, else Dorix would have identified both without cause for amendment.

He didn’t bother to climb into the crow’s nest, perching instead on the mainyard with an arm around the mast’s crown to steady himself, glass already pressed to his eye. “The nearer’s a schooner, Sir!” he yelled. “Looks Terebinthian. She’s hard athwart a brig – Galmian I reckon. Wait – aye, they’re definitely grappled together!”

“Full sail! Hard a-starboard!” Kolin’s screech reminded him of chalk being dragged down Harmin’s blackboard. Leaving the business of sail management to his colleagues Drinian tore down to deck and along to his station below the poop, ready in a moment to hoist signals or race with messages the length of the ship. 

“Some poor blighter bein’ boarded by pirates,” Crain volunteered, bustling past at the head of a deck-clearing party. “Sharpened your cutlass this cruise, Drin? Fancy you’ll need it in a minute!”

The blade hung at his hip, its edges freshly ground before the voyage began. So accustomed to its weight had he become that Drinian had to caress the hilt to reassure himself he was ready.

 _Armed_ , he amended. Not _ready_ , for all the instruction the best teachers at Etinsmere and Anvard could provide. Blunted blades brandished in childish play were no preparation for the cold steel of actual battle.

The two vessels, locked together by strong chains, were visible from deck now. Weirdly distorted yells twisted on still air, laced through with discordant clang of blade striking blade. “To arms, men!” Kolin howled, shafts of light lancing from his twirling sword as he clung to the poop’s narrow rail, legs flexed in readiness for the leap down to the Galmian’s deck. “Topasio, lay us aft and hold her steady! On my word men, we’ll take ‘em by storm!”

 _Remember to breathe, Drinian_ , he mocked himself, scrambling with the rest of the crew onto the narrow ledge of the forward bulwark. He grabbed a curved iron lantern hook hanging from the bulkhead, tensing his muscles for the shuddering force of collision as _Tiger_ ranged up from the brig’s rear, dwarfing both combatants with her sheer bulk. Grinding his teeth against the sickening crunch of impact he steadied himself, rocked back on his heels, and jumped.

“Ouf!” His legs buckled, but there was no time to complain. He was carried bodily forward by screeching shipmates, his feet contacting the brig’s grimy planking every third pace he took while the cutlass waved violently over his head. Around him a rhythmic chant had been taken up and reflexively he joined it, oddly strengthened by the lusty expulsion of the single word from his lungs.

_Tiger! Tiger! Tiger!_

A thousand different sensations struck him at once: the dirt of the deck; the appalling clamour of voices clashing one off the other; the heaving, writhing mass of men on the maindeck spewing out staggering morsels of bloodied humanity that crumpled to be trodden into the deck with battle’s ebb and flow. “To me, _Tigers!_ ” Kolin bawled, flinging himself to the fore. “Galmians, retreat! Archenland and the King!”

Again Drinian’s feet left the deck, but he had no time to wonder how such orders were to be obeyed. The pirate crew were tripping over themselves to face the new threat, pikes, battle axes and swords waving toward the Archelanders while their terrified victims stumbled for the high forecastle, yelling bloodthirsty encouragement to their rescuers. “Give ‘em no time, men!” Kolin screamed, close enough to make Drinian’s ears ring. “Charge the villains!”

The pirates surged forward, striking the newcomers with the ferocity of a tidal wave and Drinian jabbed ahead into it, unaware of the shrill stream of blasphemy that burst from his burning throat. Bodies barged against him, making it hard to retain his footing, and from the corner of his eye he spied a vicious hooked implement swinging down toward his skull. 

Throwing himself sideways he thrust his cutlass to intercept the blow, its force sending shockwaves the length of his arm. Thoughtlessly he lashed again, feeling the blade flex and bend as it sliced through something soft and flabby. 

Above the roaring and clanging, he distinctly heard the pirate’s gurgling curse as he toppled to the deck.

“Well done, boy!” Kolin roared, deftly deflecting a sword slash that might have taken his head off before Drinian could comprehend what he had just done. “We’ve the beating of ‘em now – larboard, look out!”

He threw out a stroke in the direction commanded, better prepared for the crunch of steel reaching bone the second time. A massive man with a blotched complexion, no front teeth and a bushy beard surged beyond as if the strike had passed straight through him, his sword swishing. Instinctively Drinian thrust again, and the pirate dropped like a stricken bear at his feet.

It was, he realised long after, at that point his mind chose to freeze, allowing his limbs to manage for themselves. All the elegant technique drilled by hours of schoolboy practise was forgotten and a crimson haze descended as he stabbed and parried, his throat raw from yells he never knew he expelled. He understood nothing more until the awful din was replaced by an eerie peace, broken only by the whimpers of the wounded and the crisp voice of Captain Kolin, barking instruction to his Boson from the bloody mess that was the poop.

“You all right, Drin?” Wat stepped hard on the midriff of a pirate corpse, extending a steadying arm to his whey-faced young friend. “Devils the lot of ‘em, but we’ve dealt ‘em a proper thrashin’ this time! Lean overboard if you’re as sick as you look – you’ll get used to the guts ‘n’ gore when you’ve served as long as me! ‘Ere, wipe that blade on deck, not your shirt, and come ‘elp Sarin tend our wounded. The Old Man wants me guardin’ the prisoners. Reckons I’m the greatest ogre on board.”

“D’ you take that as a compliment?” With his tattooed forearms and flattened nose the big Archenlander was a fearsome sight in the gloom of a hold, but unless he had hoarded his rum tots for a week before leave, there was no man alive more genial. Wat grinned, exposing the blackened stump of a ruined front tooth.

“Near as I’ll get from that smirkin’ villain, aye! Lion Alive feller, what’re you usin’ to dress them wounds?”

“Poltice of herbs and goose fat we use on the farm, you lumberin’ town oaf.” With strips of sail canvas coated in the sticky mixture, Sarin was busily binding a serpentine gash across his cousin’s thigh. “Aye Drin, I’d be glad of some ‘elp. These whingin’ poltroons need an officer callin’ them to attention…”

“And since the proper officers are busy, I’m the best available.” The quip made the gaggle of huddled injured laugh, and dipping his hands into the waiting pot of grease Drinian set about smearing more bandages in readiness for Sarin’s call. “Ought we not attend the prisoners too? I know they’re villains, but the Old Man hates to see a stain on his decks….”

“Wat’ll tend ‘em in his own way, but the thought’s kinder than the devils deserve.” Marix loomed astern, blue eyes twinkling. “You’re to stay aboard with my crew, Drin. The Galmians have too many dead and wounded to manage three days’ beatin’ against the tide to home, so seven of us are ordered to help ‘em. You’ll take a watch tonight?”

“Aye, Sir!” He had stood watches on the poop before, but always under Topasio’s supervision and Marix, he knew, was offering unfettered command. “I’ll send to you if needful.”

“Good lad.” The brig was a paltry craft, her decks filthy and the rigging frayed, but she was a command; and for a few quiet hours in the night, she would be _his_. 

Drinian only wished his father could witness the momentous event.

*

He took possession of the poop at dusk, with the lantern on _Tiger’s_ sternpiece already casting a pale gold trail across the sea for him to steer by. The sail hung limp and on the maindeck a handful of subdued Galmians clustered about the mast, peering aft at the intruders commanding their craft. “She’s all yours, Drinian,” Marix hollered cheerily from the hatch leading toward the master’s cabin – his, Drinian assumed, for the duration of their voyage. “Hold a true course, and watch for signals from the _Tiger_. You’ll ‘ave no trouble from those wretches!”

“Aye, Sir.” Deliberately relaxing his fingers Drinian grasped the topmost spoke of the ship’s wheel, certain he felt the play of water against the keel through it. Lifting his face to the chilly breeze he closed his eyes, determined to savour the novel sensation. Complete freedom, absolute command… everything he had dreamed of for as long as he could recall. 

Of course, Marix would soon be snoring in his cot below; Crain, Wat and Darin would appear with cutlasses waving at his first cry for assistance. Yet as the stars began to glint through a darkening velvet sky and the lumpen brigantine shuddered to his lightest touch, he could ignore reason and let himself _feel._

Blissful tears prickled his eyelids, and he made no effort to blink them back. This, whatever Miraz or Nain might imagine, was his future. Splendidly isolated with just his ship and the whistling wind for company, he needed nothing of either king or kingdom. Small wonder Papa had so urged his master to speed the development of the navy Narnia sorely needed!

The sensation stole over him, gradual but insistent. He was not alone.

“Don’t mind an old seaman hovering?” The Galmian master lolled against the deck rail. Drinian’s forehead wrinkled with concentration as he tried to dredge up the portly man’s name. 

_Galwain?_ It sounded right, he admitted, but he had not paid sufficient attention when the Captain had made the introduction. _A lesson there_ , he considered, unsurprised that the voice in his head sounded so much like the Lord Tirian’s. 

"Of course not, Sir. This _is_ your station.”

“Aye, for all the good it’s done me! Yours ain’t an Archenlandish name, I’d be right in thinking?”

“Narnian.”

“Thought as much – done business enough in the North to know that accent!” Galwain peered into the compass box and grunted. “A good hand on the tiller for a man of that land-hugging lot, if I may say.”

“You may, and thank you.” Drinian chewed his full lower lip, abandoning the first form that the obvious question took in his mind. “Your position when we chanced to find you suggests your course ran well north of the established trading routes...”

“And my business may not be _established trade_? Aye, you’re a sharp ‘un right enough.” Galwain slapped him on the shoulder, eyebrows lifting at the impressive speed with which his balance adjusted to compensate. “Your Captain thinks me no better than the villains you saved me from, but the good folk of Narnia need their Galmian spirits and canvas as much as their neighbours, and if there’s no lawful trade…”

“Smugglers.” His father had winked at the leakage of goods across the sea, which appeared untaxed and unacknowledged at market for that very reason. “What part of the Narnian coast…”

“Just north of Glasswater, to catch the monthly market. You know it?"

“Slightly. My home is a little farther north.”

“Well to the north, I’ll wager!" Galwain chortled. "Never ventured to the Etinsmere regions myself - too much chance o’ sailing into the Lord Admiral! A sad pity he fell at Miraz’s hand! Such a man might have made mariners of your people despite themselves.”

“Aye.” Even through the pain there was a shaft of fearsome pride at proof that beyond Narnia’s bounds, Papa’s reputation stood high and the usurper’s in the filth. “What news did you hear? I have been… some time away.”

“Exiled, eh?” He didn’t care for the softening of the man’s grating voice. “Well, better you pass time in sea service than idling! I saw the villain Miraz at Glasswater, surrounded by his minions – Glozelle, Sopespian and Solivar were all there, and the young Prince – you’d know _him_ , I suppose?”

“You saw Caspian?” Brushing off the hint was easy in his excitement. “Is he well? By the Lion, he’s eleven now, surely! Has he tutors – attendants fit for his rank?”

“He’s a tutor right enough! Round as he is long, and all hidden in a black hood. Lion only knows where Miraz found him.” Laying a steadying hand on the wheel (making Drinian swear inside that in his enthusiasm he should have forgotten his paramount duty) Galwain chuckled. “Mind, he must be a good man, however odd he looks! The Prince attended his every word and spoke gently, from what I saw, to all them that approached him.”

“He’s in good health?”

“Looks to be, aye, though he was kept a pace from his uncle’s elbow as they rode, and most folk were kept father still by the flicking of a whip from Glozelle riding escort! He’s named Guardian o’ Glasswater, to _protect the territory_ for Belisar’s daughters. You’d know them too, of course.”

“Of course.” Silvana and Daniela had been both dance partners and victims of pranks, but he tried not to think of those days now. Only Caspian, his trustiest ally, remained clear, and that plump boy with the round face and mop of corn-coloured curls must be as much a creature of history as Etinsmere’s rambunctious infant heir. “Does Miraz show him respect? Is he cowed in his uncle’s presence?”

“He was properly restrained, and prettily mannered too. I saw him wince when a beggar caught the flat of Solivar’s sword. A handsome lad, too - no difficulty finding him a bride when the time comes! You’re properly out of touch if you don’t know he’s officially named his uncle’s heir.”

“He was officially named his father’s and see what Miraz made of that!” Honourably handled, conducting himself like a son of the Conqueror’s line and on confidential terms with his tutor: it was better news than Drinian had dared hope, and given by a direct observer. Mumbling a farewell in answer to his informant’s, he turned his gaze out beyond _Tiger’s_ imposing bulk to the vastness of ocean beyond. Perhaps he could dare imagine henceforward that Caspian’s confinement, constrained as it was by Uncle Miraz’s limited patience, might be _almost_ as congenial as his own.


	28. Twenty-Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A sailor's life isn't all hard work at sea. There's a fair amount of slog on land too, in more ways than one. It's enough to make even the most willing volunteer blench at times...

“Come on, y’ damn’ lazy brutes!” Darin yelled, striking a glancing blow against the gleaming chestnut flank of the nearest carthorse. “Up the beach with you, she’s on damn great tree trunks ain’t she? Come on!”

“Better the horses pull her ashore than we be asked to do it,” Drinian commented mildly, urging the second beast onward with a consoling pat. Inch by agonised inch the huge bulk of the _Tiger_ crept out of her element, her timbers creaking in protest as she rode on massive wooden rollers up into drydock. “And don’t think the Old Man wouldn’t ask it!”

“Aye, while he lolls on the Lord Admiral’s barge watchin’ us suffer.” Marix gave the ship’s enormous keel a useless shove. “Barnacles big as boulders on the underside! Drin, you’re the slightest of us. They’re yours to chip away if you want that promotion the Old Man mentioned.”

“They should be mine in any case.” He eyed the encrustations turning the timbers mottled grey, green and brown with disgust. Hard as granite and covered in slime, they climbed from the base of the keel toward the greenish smudge which marked the waterline, and already men were hacking with chisels, spraying chips across the beach and into the faces of the unwary. “Just as it’s my duty to scrub the maindeck in the worst weather! A good sailor, I’ll grant you, but…”

“Take us a month it will to clean ‘er up,” Crain observed mournfully, peeking around the bow. “Coo! And as for ‘is jealousy, miladdo… think yourself lucky you’re granted shore leave when we’re done! Mate said in ‘is cups last night the old devil wanted to stop you _gaddin’ off playin’ the great nobleman_ – ‘sactly those words.”

“Playing the obedient poor relation, more like!” He spat a fragment of flying barnacle away from the corner of his mouth. “Here Dorix, hand me a hammer, there’s room enough for me to slip under now. And stand back!”

With the galleon lying like a beached whale he slithered beneath the bow, shuffling to make himself as comfortable as possible before raising his tools and beginning the unpleasantly smelly and unavoidably painful process of chiselling away the detritus left by too many months’ exposure to the sea.

Within an hour every muscle in his arms had knotted with cramp; his thighs burned from the strain of holding himself twisted in confined space; and his eyes stung against constant assault by loosened encrustation. He had never been more relieved to see Crain’s gap-toothed grin when the Westerwood man crawled below to relieve him.

“Cap’n says you’re to eat, then get to work on the larboard bow,” he announced in a stage whisper. “’E’s not such a bad old tyrant sometimes – the Admiral was down watchin’ us work, and I even heard ‘im declare what a diligent young feller you are – for a nobleman, o’ course.”

“Of course.” He crabbed his way out of the ship’s shadow, cursing the brightness of the midday sun. “Ow!”

Marix offered a supporting arm while, gingerly, Drinian straightened his abused spine. “If it don’t cripple you in the first week, you get used to it,” the Boson told him good-humouredly. “Go and eat, then report back to me. Sooner we get done, the sooner us volunteers can go on leave.”

*

None of the arduous labours of sailing had tired him, Drinian acknowledged by the second week’s end, quite as much as the filthy business of careening the ship’s whole hull. Once the worst of the barnacles were chiselled away the planking had to be scrubbed to remove the rest: then hot pitch in stinking barrels was ferried down the beach to be painted across the seams between hull and deck planking alike. The sickly smell made him light-headed. Muscles he had never known he possessed ached with a fiery insistence. And at the end of each day it seemed no more than another inch of hull was restored.

How the pressed men, not trusted to work on shore without an officer at their backs and denied the prospect of a visit home (which was much more appealing as he considered the terrifying amount of work left to be done) endured the business so cheerfully, Drinian found he couldn’t imagine.

“No point tryin’ to run,” Darin whispered as they cleared away the remnants of breakfast on the nineteenth day. “Cap’n’s sendin’ out more pressgangs later, an’ if we tried to bolt he’d ‘ave all the ‘ounds o’ Barwell after us! Sea life’s not so bad, anyway: least there’s no Tash-benighted _merchant_ chasin’ a feller for his last ‘alf-Coronet to Galma and back! The food’s all right, an’ the company’s good enough.”

“Aye, and the wife not after you for keep every week!” Sarin slapped his cousin on the back. “We’d not run now, Drin – we’re agreed on that, not that the Old Man’d believe us.”

“Not sure I do!” He dodged a good-natured cuffing, joining their laughter. “I’m a volunteer, and another month o’ this slavery might have _me_ running for the woods!”

“Rare Narnian that’d do that!” Topasio commented, hurrying past in a tar-stained apron. “Drin, you’re below again this morning, but Captain says if you’ve a good seat you may ride with us this afternoon. We need another five men to sail this girl to ‘er best. If you’ve a tender conscience about sweepin’ up ruffians like these two… stow it with your sextant, there’s a good lad.”

“Aye, Sir.” Pulling a face at the Mate’s retreating back he steeled himself against the crawling sensation of disgust that accompanied every mention of the navy’s marauding gangs. Aboard the _Tiger_ it was true that pressed men laboured willingly enough beside their volunteer shipmates, their lack of rancour against brazen abduction a source of never-ending astonishment. But to be party to the seizure of another mortal being from his settled way of life… every instinct Drinian possessed revolted against the very prospect.

*

He tried to imagine they ambled through the sunny countryside for pleasure: an idyllic fantasy hardly helped by the low thrum of Topasio’s incessant cursing while the Mate lolled in the saddle like a sack of turnips, clutching the reins hard enough to make his knuckles crack with each stride his apathetic cob took. That the fields were empty of labourers beyond a pair of withered old men and a girl improved the Mate’s temper not a jot, while lifting his neighbour’s markedly.

“Could they have had word?” he wondered aloud. Topasio snorted. 

“Aye, likely some villain at the dockyard cast out a line,” he agreed, giving his horse’s bridle a vicious tug when the animal would have paused for a bite of verdant hedgerow. “They know when a ship’s in for careening there’ll be a gang sent out. Hi! In the woods four points to starboard! Gallop lads, don’t let the laggard get away!”

Drinian had disliked hunting as a small boy trotting after the King’s hounds with an elderly falcon perched on his wrist, sickened by the boisterous excitement of the grown-ups chasing a terrified mammal through a thicket. To see a fellow man tripping through the undergrowth, glancing back every third step as his screaming pursuers bore down upon him, their whoops rebounding from the trees, made his stomach spasm and his head spin. 

_Hurry up!_ He urged the poor runaway silently, dropping back into Topasio’s wake. _Dive into a hollow, or climb a tree – do anything but run on and think you’ll escape us!_

But still the man blundered blindly on until his legs gave way and he collapsed face-down in the dirt. With a jerk of the head Topasio ordered his little force to surround him, vaulting down from their saddles in grim silence.

Surreptitiously studying five stony expressions made Drinian realise he was not alone in finding the scene distasteful. Even the Mate, when he reached down to raise the captive’s chin, moved with unwonted gentleness.

“Now then, feller, make this painless for us all! Come gladly and we’ll list you as a volunteer, pay your bounty with no question asked,” he murmured, barely audible above the menacing scrape of Crain’s sword easing from its scabbard. “Name, age, birthplace – that’s all we need to know. Ours is a good ship, and if the Old Man’s a cussed devil at times, he’s as good a seaman as the King boasts. Come quietly, that’s the way.”

“No!” Throwing off Topasio’s hand the prisoner staggered backward with limbs flailing. Crain and Dorix lunged to seize his shoulders in a steely grip, and though he kicked viciously it was a moment’s work for Lain to clip rusted irons around his wrists and ankles. “I’m a free man and a subject of the King, I won’t be dragged off like a Calormene slave! Take your great filthy hands off me, wretch! My uncle’s at court, he’ll take my cause t’ the King!”

“By which time you’ll be ‘alfway to Redhaven, so stop this commotion afore I stop it for yer.” Dorix winked, and despite himself Drinian’s mouth twitched. “My mother had a place in the late Queen’s household, and my sister serves the Princess,” he continued, resuming his usual impeccable enunciation. “But did my connections rescue _me_ five years ago?”

“I never knew your sister was at court!” Drinian burst out. Dorix shrugged.

“The Princess’s laundress, but a place at court’s a place at court to a commoner! Stop _wriggling_ , man, those irons chafe – I know! With your permission, Mate, I’ll hurry this whimpering boor back to Barwell. Unless we gag him, he’ll set up enough of a caterwauling to send half the country hiding under their beds!”

“We’d best turn back.” Their captive was a puny specimen Drinian considered, gladly wheeling his horse toward the coast at Topasio’s nod. “Poor pickings we’ve found today! I’ll make them loose-lipped swindlers at the yard smart for sendin’ out word before us! Lead on Drin, these damned woods are thick enough to make an albatross doubt its way!”

*

It took days for him to shake off the impotent horror of the manhunt, though Drinian damned himself for a sentimental fool. Dismissed for a month’s leisure when the galleon was hauled back to her proper element, he was alarmed to discover his spirits soaring to be travelling inland: an inversion of the natural order he could attribute only to the sullen presence of Master Berix at the breakfast table.

Nobody was expecting him at Westerwood. Skirting the southern boundary of his uncle’s lands, Drinian dismounted and led his bay gelding through the garden gate, leaving it to amble as it would while he knelt on the lush grass below Aunt’s weeping cherry tree. There was no sign of the ground ever having been disturbed, and as he ran his hands lovingly across her grave, he was grateful. Mamma had peace, and he could sit undisturbed, silently relating his adventures without anyone coming to mock or – far, far worse - condole. 

“I’m a Seaman now: almost a full officer,” he said aloud, blinking at the crisp sound of the words on autumnal air. “Oh Mamma, I wish you were here!”

She was not, he reminded himself sternly; and he was approaching fourteen now. Old enough to assume control of his estates, were Miraz not an immovable obstacle. Swallowing the lump that dug into his windpipe, Drinian dragged himself upright, snatched his horse’s bridle and strode across the garden toward the stable yard, forcing out a broken whistle as he went. 

A slight figure darted across his vision. “Warin!” he yelled, picking up his pace. “Oh, don’t _dawdle_ , Standard, did I not promise better stabling than you see at Barwell tonight?”

“Drinian? By the Mane of Aslan, Master never said you were coming!” Clutching his neck, the young stable hand blushed to the tips of his prominent ears. “Sorry,” he squeaked, giving an experimental cough before trying again, an octave lower this time. “Master says I’m turned into a one-boy musical troupe!”

“When did it start?” Drinian gave his shoulder a sympathetic clout that stopped him dead as the smaller boy lurched forward. “And I swore I’d never do that!”

“What?” The short word went up from beginning to end. Drinian grimaced.

“Slap a fellow on the back hard enough to send him stumbling, of course! And don’t fret! Your voice will settle soon enough.”

“As yours has?” Warin eyed him sceptically. Drinian laughed.

“Aye, in the last weeks.” He rubbed his throat, startled into a grin in recalling the rough teasing of shipmates who knew no better way to buttress against embarrassment. Warin grabbed him by the upper arm and yelped. “What?” 

“By the Lion I’ll feel a proper scrawny beggar beside you, these shirt seams are fit to burst! What’s the stripe on your sleeve here?”

“Promotion already, lad?” Booted and spurred for his daily gallop the Lord Dar burst out of the servants’ door, his ruddy colour burnished by a season spent, his nephew gathered, mostly in the fields. “Come within, your aunt’s in the parlour composing a letter to my damned mincing cousin – right glad she’ll be of cause to set her pen aside! Lion bless me, you’re become a giant!”

“Else you’re turned into a dwarf, Sir.” Laughing he allowed himself to be bear-hugged, resigned to having his burgeoning muscles and deepened voice exclaimed over again. “Hardly credit to me, mind,” he protested, giving Warin a friendly wave before he could be dragged into the house. “The one’s nature – as it might be kind to remind your stable boy – and the other consequence of daily battling with sail ropes and pump handles! You look well, Uncle.”

“I potter on, despite the gout,” Dar boomed happily. “Old fool of a physician says riding makes it worse, but I refuse to allow it! Katharina, we’ve a young man for company! Keep the maids in their kitchens, he’s more handsome than the usual run of doddering fools that call on us!”

“Uncle!” Drinian had believed himself beyond blushing, but his relation’s enthusiasm combined with the coquettish glance of a red-haired kitchen girl passing by was sufficient to prove him wrong. 

Perhaps, he mused, digging his nails into his palms in readiness for Aunt’s inevitable effusions, he ought to have been less dutiful and accepted Marix’s offer of a cot above the sailcloth merchant’s warehouse for his holiday instead!


	29. Twenty-Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As close counsellors to the Telmarine Kings, Lords of Etinsmere have been diplomats as well as warriors. One or two of them were even quite good at it, apparently. Like the majority of his ancestors, it may be that Drinian's talents lie in a different area...

“My Lord Coltrix, Master Zarn, bid you welcome aboard.” The gilt buttons of his best uniform flashing, Kolin bent from the waist before two middle-aged and portly men in King Nain’s subdued livery as they huffed their way up the _Tiger’s_ freshly-scrubbed gangplank. “As required by His Majesty, we are ready to sail the moment you command it. Will you allow me to present my officers?”

“All in good time, my dear fellow.” Neat, fussy-looking Coltrix bustled directly past the astonished Captain with the harassed secretary Zarn, document rolls slipping from the battered satchel on his shoulder, scampering in his scented wake. “I assume you have accommodation made ready for us? His Majesty demands frequent reports on our progress: I must write before we sail.”

“Can’t be much progress to report this far from Tashbaan,” Wat rumbled in what he considered to be a whisper. Kolin’s shoulders sagged. Lord Coltrix pursed his flabby lips.

“Your men have a reputation for _good behaviour_ , Captain. I trust they will not _damage_ it in the presence of His Majesty’s representatives,” he trilled, fixing the offender with a censorious stare. Wat gave vent to a mammoth sniff.

Drinian aimed a steel-toed boot at his ankle. The Captain managed a strained smile.

“My crew are rough mariners, my Lord, with no knowledge of the diplomatic world. I beg you excuse their coarse ways. Drinian, perhaps you would escort our passengers to their cabins?”

“Aye, Captain.” He clipped out the standard phrase, holding himself at strict attention under the rheumy scrutiny of the noble lord. “If you might be kind enough to follow me, gentlemen.”

“Rough mariners, eh?” Zarn revealed an unexpectedly high-pitched voice. “ _That_ is the elocution of a gentleman! I have a desk in my chambers, I hope?”

“The Mate’s cabin is hardly large enough to accommodate extraneous furnishing Master Zarn, but the Captain’s arranged for a table to be placed on deck each morning.” Flashing a guileless smile over his shoulder as he pattered down the hatch from the poop, Drinian allowed himself to savour the man’s horrified expression. “This is the Captain’s cabin, my Lord.”

“Thank you, young man.” Coltrix made no move. Repressing the urge to roll his eyes, Drinian leaned across and shoved the door inward.

“I _see_.” Saucer-eyed, the ambassador surveyed the square wooden box: taking in the single high-backed chair and small desk bolted to the floor; the bare cot which swung from the bulkhead. “The rest of my rooms?”

“My Lord?” He cocked his head, assuming what he hoped was an innocent façade. 

“My dining space; accommodation for the servants who are bringing my possessions; an area where I might take my leisure. Your _fine speech_ is deceiving, young man, if you cannot appreciate the _absolute_ necessity of such things to a gentleman on his sovereign’s business!”

“Your Lordship’s servants and belongings will be accommodated below with the crew – and the senior officers, who have surrendered their quarters for your convenience.” They were shaken by his haughtiness. _Good_ , he thought, consciously relaxing his balled fists. “Should you wish to exchange your present quarters for others, I daresay Boson will be happy to oblige, but I should warn you: these are the only private cabins we carry.”

“Then where do the crew sleep?” Zarn demanded.

“Our hammocks are slung below. Meals are taken on the maindeck in all weathers, but please, don’t be alarmed. Conditions are unseasonably mild at present.”

“His Majesty would expect his emissaries to be housed in the best conditions possible,” Coltrix stuttered, wringing his damp hands. Drinian bit hard against the inside of his cheek.

“His Majesty may be assured they are my Lord, but _Tiger_ is a ship of war, not a pleasure cruiser. Now if you’ll excuse me, we’re about to get underway. I have duties to attend.”

“Then they may wait.” Even in the cabin’s shadows he could see perspiration dribbling down the fretful official’s wrinkled brow. “I shall write to Anvard, and I expect my letter despatched before we depart!”

“I’ll inform the Captain as I pass.” When Coltrix mopped his face, Drinian spied the ink stains on thumb and forefinger. An inveterate report writer, he guessed, excusing himself before disgust could leak into his face. A pen-merchant as Papa would have said, raised to noble rank as reward for assiduous service and incapable of breaking his clerk’s habits. A faithful servant to his master no doubt, but an infernal irritant to the rest of society!

The Captain confirmed his impression with a roll of the eyes. “Perhaps you might care to write to Anvard yourself, my Lord of Etinsmere,” he drawled, the title’s use bringing activity around the poop to a standstill. “You _do_ outrank Coltrix by several dozen degrees, I believe.”

“Aye, Captain.” A shudder of satisfaction seemed to emanate from the hull itself. People turned back to their tasks with smiles on their faces. “Permission to delay reporting to my duty station, Sir?”

“Granted. Topasio, have a rider standing ready to carry _two_ letters to Anvard.”

Kolin tore a page from the ship’s log; Darin was sent to fetch melted wax from the galley. Wetting the end of his quill, Drinian scratched two lines into the page before folding it and applying the imprint of his signet ring to the seal. “You are extremely kind, Sir, to grant me permission to write,” he said loudly, his sharp eye catching the first outward twitch of the hatch. Kolin’s jaw creaked ominously into an unaccustomed beam.

“A pleasure; and I dare wager my Lord Coltrix will have no objection to your missive travelling with his. Their Highnesses will be delighted to have word from you.”

“Their _Royal_ Highnesses, Captain?” Zarn’s shrill question sliced the air, his pale grey eyes widening at the names inked across the page. “This young fellow is acquainted with His Highness - and the Princess?”

Drinian bowed smartly. “Have your courier convey my most respectful greeting to His Majesty,” he said, turning the request into an insouciant command. “Oh! Perhaps I should introduce myself: I am Drinian, Lord of Etinsmere. Captain, I believe these gentlemen were under some misapprehension….”

“No longer, I think.” Kolin actually grinned. “All hands, take your stations! You might wish to instruct your messenger directly, Master Zarn. The tide’s in our favour, and we cannot delay His Majesty’s business another night, can we?”

*

“The look on ‘is fat little face!” Darin crowed, knocking back his tot in a single mouthful. “Fair thought ‘e’d topple over the side when you come out with your proper title, Drin!”

“No such luck.” Perched on the corner of a boatbox beside Crain, his neck twisted to avoid the large ham hock swinging from the bulkhead above, he sipped his own measure more cautiously, appreciating its warm slide to his belly while still detesting the rawness of the taste. “It was likelier I would when the Old Man used it!”

“What did you write, anyhow?” his neighbour demanded. “If you’re not too high-and-mighty to tell us, o’ course.”

“Naught of importance. _Dear Corin and Anelia, your father’s representatives are a pair of pompous ninnies, warmest wishes, Drinian._ ”

Their rowdy laughter echoed in the confined space, winning sleepy protests from shipmates already swaying in their hammocks. “’Ope the Prince shows it to ‘is Majesty, then,” Darin declared. “Oi, Berix! If you’re not drinkin’ your tot, show some civility an’ pass it along the line!”

“’s not supposed to be transferred.” Both hands around his tin mug, the newest crewman glowered.

“An’ if there’s any goin’ free, it should come to me afore you, presser.” Wat leaned from his cot with teeth bared. Darin heaved himself to his feet.

“An’ why might that be? You wasn’t a volunteer when you first come aboard yourself.”

“I wasn’t there o’ my own free will, but I took the bounty when it were offered, so accordin’ to the rules…”

“Since when did you obey rules where liquor’s concerned?” 

Feet shuffled and hammocks were pulled hastily back. “Darin, if Mate comes on his round now you’ll be dragged up for punishment afore breakfast,” Sarin warned, his restraining hand shoved away. “An’ the rules say if a fellow don’t finish ‘is tot, it goes back in the barrel for tomorrow. Let well alone.”

“Better I ‘ave it than Wat; ‘e’s pickled inside already.”

“Not so pickled I can’t break your neck with one ‘and.”

“Like to see you try it!”

“Well the rest of us wouldn’t.” To his own astonishment Drinian found himself squeezed in between two hardened brawlers, pushing hard against the chest of each. “In the Lion’s name, look at yourselves! Aye, smash each others’ noses if you wish, Milord Coltrix would be delighted to write a full report on naval punishment for His Majesty. Berix, toss that damned tot into the bilge water. Let ‘em lick it off the planking if they must!”

Ominous silence swallowed the echo of his voice. Wat’s raised arms dropped to his sides.

“Aye, do as ‘e says, you cringing damned lubber,” he grunted, giving Darin a friendly shove toward his hammock. “Some of us worked ‘ard today: I’m for me cot. Goodnight all.”

“Goodnight.” Tumbling into his hammock at least spared him the humiliation of their seeing his knees give way. _What in the name of Aslan were you thinking?_ Drinian berated himself, turning a burning face to the bulkhead. If either of those two big men had been sufficiently riled…

But they had backed away. People – even King Caspian himself – had said Papa wore an air of authority as naturally as most men did their shirts. Could it be, in a small, way he had inherited a fraction of that precious gift?

 _Perhaps_ , he mused, allowing his eyes to drift shut. But he would tread warily around Wat and Darin for a day or two. It wouldn’t do to press them too far!


	30. Twenty-Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Calormene waters bring their share of new experiences. Some are more pleasant - or more useful - than others...

The farther south they sailed, the deeper blue the Bight of Calormen became and the balmier the air that kissed his burnished cheek each morning when he raced to his station as forward lookout. Though he had to step around Coltrix on his morning stroll, and Zarn slumped over his writing table in the shadow of the mast, Drinian could dismiss them as mild inconveniences. The Captain was unfailingly courteous; his quarrelsome messmates bore no grudge for his preventing a potential ruckus; and though others considered the expanse of empty ocean dull, he savoured the _Tiger’s_ total isolation.

Swinging idly from the iron staple fastened into the galleon’s prow he allowed the knotted line with its weighted lead slip between his fingers. “No bottom at fifty,” he sang out, reeling it deftly in. The Bight glinted brilliantly below; a lone Galleon Gull briefly cast its slender shadow overhead, wings motionless as it rode the air’s currents. Drinian lifted his gaze, following its southerly progress and marvelling as he often did at its unflinching certainty. There was no land for a hundred leagues ahead, yet the bird’s route never deviated. Lucky the mariner who could chart his course with such assurance!

“Are those rocks?” he wondered, stretching as far out over the water as he dared. With his free hand he fumbled backward for a telescope, peering toward the mysterious obstructions. “Officer of the watch! What looks like a row of rocks dead ahead!”

“Wha’s that?” He was thankful to hear the gruff bass of Marix coming back to him. If he was wrong, Boson would be the most generous of the officers to an eager lad’s mistake. Handing over his telescope, Drinian jabbed a finger toward the obstruction off the starboard bow. 

"They're moving!" he yelped. Marix dropped his glass with a clatter, cupped his hands to his mouth and loosed a mighty howl toward the galleon's stern. 

"Helmsman, hard a-port! Sailmen away! Man the oars! Summon Captain, we've a sea serpent ahead!"

"Really?" Drinian seized his telescope again, swinging to stare at the green-brown mottled lumps as the ship heeled to a safer course. "In Narnia we're told they belong to fairy-tales!"

"If they did, these damned waters would be safer." As if it felt their scrutiny the monster eased itself skyward, rearing amidst a broiling pool of ocean with pointed head cocked. Barnacles clung to its scaly hide and, by adjusting the focus of his glass, Drinian could see the scimitar-curved teeth that clashed as the beast worked its massive jaws. "That's a full-grown adult: as well you called when you did! Keep watchin' it, and if he moves this way, holler. Cap'n, you see it?"

"I do." Kolin had ghosted to the fo'c'sle unnoticed, but so fascinated was he by the beast Drinian might have missed a passing Calormene battle fleet. "My compliments to the lookout. You have a good eye, Etinsmere."

"Thank you, Sir." He would never dismiss a series of roundish rocks ahead again, Drinian promised himself. And though it might not be visible for long, keeping a wary eye on the creature’s activities while it remained above the surface was a more thrilling way of passing the morning than hearing the Lord Coltrix drone (for the dozenth time) about his magnificent trade negotiation with the Confederation of the Seven Isles a hundred and fifty years ago!

*

At length the lively roll of the Bight gave way to the sluggish brown flow of the Great River, forcing _Tiger_ to groan her laborious way forward against the current. The sail fell uselessly in the still air and the men were organised into four companies of oarsmen, taking turns to haul the ship’s great bulk along day and night. Drinian found ample excuse to evade the frustrated dignitaries, to whom his exalted rank made _His Highness the Prince’s friend_ a magnet. When not pulling on an oar or attending his duties on deck he was too exhausted to do more than grunt, chew a dry crust of bread, and sleep.

The country inching past offered little distraction, even when the fine drizzle which had accompanied their landward turn dissolved on the humidity of the southern air. Flat and featureless pasture without so much as a hamlet to break the monotony, it emphasised as no map ever could the vastness of the Tisroc’s territory; and thus, according to King Nain’s ambassadors, the paramount importance of the enterprise upon which they were embarked.

“They say a mere fifty men own all the land we pass,” Coltrix observed, wiping his inky fingers against the new-polished brass of the poop rail. Drinian slid a worried glance to the Captain. Kolin merely nodded.

“And forty-nine of _them_ own their possession to the will of the Tisroc,” he murmured. “We expect to meet our Calormene escort at dawn tomorrow. Drinian, you’ll be at your station for first light. Topasio, you’ll ensure the men hold their tongues unless spoken to. My Lord Coltrix is _particularly_ anxious there are no _silly misunderstandings_ in the first stages of his embassy.”

“Aye, Cap’n.” The Archenlandish officers – himself included, Drinian realised with delight – were engaged in an unspoken conspiracy to mock the preening emissary as much as they dared before he recognised their disdain. By the Mate’s toothy grin, he was hardly alone in expecting the game to continue all the way to Tashbaan.

“We dare not permit these ignorant fellows to offend our hosts, my dear Captain; and their customs are very _different_ from ours.” Coltrix’s chest expanded under their respectful murmurs. “And His Imperial Majesty has never extended the courtesy of an escort to the very gates of his capital to any embassy before us. Of course, Captain – my Lord Drinian – it _is_ unfortunate you must be prohibited from experiencing the wonders of Tashbaan for yourselves, but _foreigners_ are not encouraged to visit the Imperial citadel.”

“Your Lordship is kind, but we have duties aboard which would prevent our indulging His Imperial Highness’s – beg pardon, _Majesty’s_ hospitality. Officers of the watch! Swing your glasses to the larboard bank and examine the town we’re approaching. A Coronet to the first man that spies the fortress of Majalara! Look carefully: my Lord Coltrix assures me it remains artfully concealed among the hovels – _houses_.”

Hovels, Drinian considered, was the more appropriate term: low and squat with turf roofs and rough walls, the cottages of Majalara would have been scorned by the meanest of Etinsmere’s farm-hands. And if the shoddy pile of rocks east of the place was known locally as a fortress, he doubted it would take more than the armed crew of the _Tiger_ to overpower the whole of Tashbaan!

*

Daybreak saw him in full uniform at his station, squinting through the clearing mist for Calormen’s escort ships approaching. The wind had come to their aid, freshening from the east and drawing the men whooping with relief from the oars. Any laggard who could find an excuse, it seemed, was loitering on deck awaiting his hail. “Calormenes are rarer than mermaids in the Windin’ Arrow,” Marix hissed, pretending to be busy with his charts. “Can’t blame a fellow for wantin’ to catch a glimpse o’ the devils, can you?”

“Coltrix would.”

“All the more reason to stand an’ stare, Drin! Lion Alive there’s life - folk workin’ in the fields hereabout! Hi, Darin! Do the wenches in our fields dress like that?”

Startled, Drinian swung his telescope briefly landward, the instrument suddenly heavy against petrified fingers. A dozen lissom girls scampered on the riverbank, their glistening brown midriffs bared between bright pantaloons and translucent blouses. Long hair as black and glossy as his own streamed loose over slender shoulders; brilliant white teeth flashed excited smiles as hands lifted to wave at the staring seamen.

“I wish!” he heard Darin chortle. “Cap’n’s comin!”

Instantly every eye turned forward. Drinian suspected he was not alone in surreptitiously sliding a starboard glance with every third heartbeat, relishing the sight of the laughing girls as they pointed and capered for the _Tiger’s_ crew.

“S’pose there’s truth in the old sayin’, then,” Berix grunted, his usual slouch ironed out for the benefit of their audience. “Never saw the farm girls blowin’ kisses my way ‘fore I got kidnapped.”

“The word’s _pressed_ , an’ there’s truth enough in that.” Wat whistled affirmation through the gap in his front teeth. “Dunno why, but the lasses does ‘ave a likin’ for a sailin’ man. Even them foreign wenches, by the look o’ things! Drin! Dead ahead lad, the Old Man’ll ‘ave yer ‘ide if ogling the natives makes you slow wi’ the ‘ail!”

“Sail in sight!” Blushing to the roots of his hair, Drinian loosed the necessary shout without troubling to check its accuracy. Wat thumped him hard on the back - his standard mode of apology for teasing - while the flurry of excitement the three words caused allowed precious moments for Drinian to gather his shattered composure.

Enraptured by the play of sunlight on their succulent flesh, the girls had thoroughly distracted him from his duty. But for Wat, the Calormene vessels might have crashed alongside with boarding parties screaming from the bow and he, the ship’s lookout, would not have detected them.

Pursing his lips he focussed his narrowed stare on the approaching ships, willing the warmth in his belly to dissolve. He had seen pretty women often enough before. The sight of flat, bronzed bellies and sweet oval faces kissed by warm sunlight ought not to be interesting him so!

He remembered Caspian flinching from the proffered hand of a dance partner; himself and Ninian scrubbing their cheeks when the Glasswater sisters had obeyed their father’s stern instruction to kiss their guests farewell. And he recalled Marix’s conspiratorial leer when Wat and Crain rolled back from their last shore leave, the smirk so like Wat’s own in the face of his very recent discomfort.

He wondered briefly whether the change – and the comparison – was more thrilling or alarming. Then Coltrix and the Captain loomed at the corner of his vision and with a gusty sigh he forced his attention back to the approaching ships.

_Squat, ugly little brutes,_ he decided, the banks of oars crabbing through the water on either side giving them the look of gigantic centipedes crawling over the river’s smooth surface. The castles fore and aft were high but constricted, as if the space required was given grudgingly by shipwrights convinced they ought to fit in a few more rowers’ benches. 

The oarsmen themselves, visible through the oar slots, were hunched over their tools, heads bowed as if they were desperate to avoid the eye of the single officer who strutted among them, flicking a broad leather strap between his hands. A single oar flailed for an instant in response to a stroke missed by an exhausted man. The strap arched downward, forcing the air from the unfortunate’s lungs and sending him sprawling into the man ahead. 

From the deck of the _Tiger_ a low hum of horror began to rise.

“As the Lord Coltrix says gentlemen, the habits of our hosts are unlike ours.” Kolin’s weak drawl was gravelled, but the tone remained neutral. “I trust even the _unwilling_ among our company will better appreciate their good fortune in serving aboard an Archelandish ship henceforward.”

“Aye, there’s much to be said for servin’ as a free-born man,” Topasio agreed, giving Darin an amiable jab in the ribs as he ambled to join his commander. “If you’d care to desert to the Calormene service, me gloomy pressers, I’ll wager a year’s pay them fellers ‘d gladly fill your berths! Damned great filthy dog, there’s a metal buckle to the villain’s strap!”

“I trust your deputy will be more _civil_ when our hosts come aboard, Captain.” Coltrix’s brow gleamed with a sheen of perspiration the morning hardly merited. “Disapprove as we may of Calormen’s more ancient habits, we hear _the lash_ remains an instrument of discipline in _all_ naval services.”

“A punishment of last resort, my Lord, as His Majesty’s instructions make clear; and one not required aboard my ship these five years past.” With a sharp wave of the hand Kolin despatched his men to their positions, never taking his steely stare from the approaching Calormenes. “The Tisroc’s representative will come aboard, I understand, and sail with us to Tashbaan?”

“Aroshin Tarkaan is His Imperial Majesty’s _personal_ emissary. Any _ill-will_ toward his country’s customs may endanger the success of my embassy. Your men, Captain, will hold their tongues unless addressed, and give no sign of resentment however the Tarkaan sees fit to conduct himself.”

Kolin, for all his years at sea, had retained a pallid complexion. Drinian had never seen so much colour staining the Captain’s cheek. All the blood from such pinched lips, he guessed, had to flow somewhere. “My men’s conduct I shall vouch for, my Lord, for so long as _you_ will stand for the ambassador’s,” he growled. “Topasio, back the sail! Grappling parties to the entryport! Look lively, your slovenly laggards! Let’s have no ill report of our _indiscipline_ reach Tashbaan!”


	31. Thirty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drinian hasn't been impressed by Archenland's emissaries. What of Calormen's?

The Tisroc’s personal emissary proved to be a tall, rangy man with a shrewd hatchet of a face and a straight nose of immense length. _All the better_ , Drinian mused, bowing stiffly with breath indrawn against the clouds of musky scent which wafted from the man’s robes, _for sneering down._ Dripping with rubies and gold, Aroshin Tarkaan humbly beseeched (in a tone of languidly imperial command) that no time be wasted on needless ceremony. “His Highest Imperial Majesty, my master Tisroc Tambolan (may he live forever) commands me present the ambassador of his most honoured barbarian kinsman Nain at the first moment, so benevolent is his goodwill toward that noble supplicant of his favour. You will stand with me, my Lord Coldtrees—“

“Col _trix_ , my Lord,” his neighbour, suddenly smaller, more rotund and even less significant than usual, whined. The Tarkaan lifted a single plucked brow, but made no correction.

“The Captain will order his men to leave the forward castle for our exclusive use. Your servant may attend, should you desire a written record of our discussions.”

Zarn’s eyes popped at the dismissive reference. Nearby, Drinian identified the unmistakable sound of a smothered snigger.

As a junior officer, he ought to have scowled at the offender. It was difficult, while desperately stifling a grin himself.

“Topasio, instruct the men. The fo’c’sle will not be scrubbed this morning. All hands are to attend their duties without approaching that part of the ship.”

“Aye, Sir.” The Mate howled his orders the length of the galleon. Whether he took greater satisfaction from Coltrix’s or Aroshin’s wince, Drinian dared not guess.

The sail had to be backed, then furled, holding _Tiger’s_ pace to the stately crawl of her escort. One ahead and one astern, the hoarse shouts of the galley masters urging the oarsmen along floated clearly, interspersed with the ominous _flick_ and _thwack_ of the whip slicing the air. “And they call us barbarians,” Dorix muttered, careful to avert his eye from the most recent victim of routine cruelty ahead. “Old _Coldtrees_ had best mind his flapping tongue when he reaches Tashbaan! Do they still go in for boiling in oil in these parts?”

“Ask our guest and we may find out.” From the curl of his waxed and dyed beard to his curve-toed shoes, Aroshin Tarkaan emanated nothing but indolent disdain for his animated fellow emissary. One could hardly blame an intelligent man for that, Drinian considered, but for any negotiation to succeed, surely both sides ought to at least begin by showing enthusiasm for it.

Lunch was delayed, the galleon drawn across to the farther bank of the river at a point where a sheer rock loomed from deep beds of broad and glossy reeds. “Tash’s Redoubt, beneath which your vessel will await your return, my noble companion,” the Tarkaan intoned, evidently having given up twisting his tongue around Coltrix’s name. “None but the Guardian of the Flame dare venture to this sacred place: he will come at dusk to ensure the fire burns bright to guide him should Tash, the inexorable, the invincible, deign to honour his servants beyond their meagre merits. This divine rock is his final resting place before the Great Temple of Tashbaan itself. Fires are burned throughout the night to give him guidance.”

“Wouldn’t’ve thought a god needed it,” Berix whispered. “Coo! How’s a fellow t' do business wi’ addle-pates what still believe in the old gods, eh?”

Marix glared at him. “Not that I don’t agree, mind,” he muttered, risking the wrath of Topasio, impatiently awaiting the end of his watch at the tiller. “We’re to moor between the galleys, Mate, that right?”

“Aye.” Topasio lifted a sharp salute to signal the appearance of the Captain’s sandy head at the top of the poop ladder. “Ten fathoms o’ water reported, Sir. We’ll have no difficulty anchorin’ as close to that damned rock as we’re told.”

“ _Asked_ , Topasio. My Lords, if you care to take your lunch on the fo’c’sle…”

“Thank you, Captain.” Coltrix rubbed his plump hands. “My dear Tarkaan, allow me…”

His appeal struck the top of the Calormene’s turban. Without awaiting invitation Aroshin Tarkaan was down the ladder and striding in a flurry of orange skirts toward the waiting table. “Stand aside, slave!” he snarled, shoving the unfortunate Sarin from his path hard enough to make the man stumble. “On _our_ ships captains restrain such insolent pups from their masters’ sight!”

“And in our land, the laying of hand on a man in violence is abhorred,” muttered Coltrix, agitated enough to miss his footing on the ladder. Three men sprinted to lift him from his ungainly sprawl, dusting him down with more vigour than tenderness while loudly enquiring as to his health and exclaiming their relief at all his flustered reassurances. Waiting until the unfortunate ambassador had hobbled beyond earshot, Kolin leaned over the poop rail and wagged a finger at his tittering crewmen.

“Your point is made, men,” he said placidly. “Now hurry to your messes before your shipmates steal your beef. By my estimate we’ll reach Tashbaan before sunset, and our ship will be our own again.”

“Not afore time, Cap’n: can’t be doin’ wi’ all this diplomatic airy-fairyin’.” Wat spoke for them all, and in that instant Drinian’s appreciation for his unusual commander soared. Kolin might be burdened by the misfortunes of his birth; he might be moody, even sour; but he was honest, he was fair and he knew the mettle of his company as well as any captain that ever sailed.

Perhaps, he mused, that was why Uncle Dar had been so determined to place him aboard the _Tiger_. For a certainty he’d not secured the berth with thoughts of diplomatic uselessness in mind!

*

Through the afternoon, his opinion of the journey improved. Flat pasture gave way to landscaped gardens rolling down to private jetties from vast, gleaming mansions: the country retreats of Calormen’s elite lining both banks as the river narrowed. Stately figures strolled between groves of orange and lemon trees, the sweet citrus tang that hung over them wafting across the water. At the river’s edge servant girls in silk and gauze knelt with their mistresses’ laundry, pausing to smile and stare at the sailors gazing avidly back. The male servants, pruning flower-laden bushes and sweeping paths, spared the passing vessels barely a glance.

“Funny place. Only the women are friendly,” Darin observed, smacking his lips at the flirtatious curtseys being made by a group of those giggling young ladies on the port bank. Drinian, shielding his eyes for a better view, laughed.

“Perhaps that friendliness makes their men jealous?” he asked, the last word ending on a squeak as one especially friendly female wrenched off her blouse to wave like a favour. His neighbour, seizing Drinian’s abandoned telescope for a closer look, chortled.

“Aye, that manner o’ kindness’d win the wench a pretty fortune on Barwell quay! Pity we’re not to enter Tashbaan, Drin – wager these Calormene beauties ’d teach us a trick or two!”

“Attend your duties, men, and be thankful you’ll have leisure in your home port – yes, even you, Darin, your conduct afloat at least is exemplary. Only remember: two weeks, and not a day more, unless you’d have all the heralds in the land on your heels!”

“Aye, Cap’n. Thank ‘ee, Sir.” Forgetful of the show on shore the sailor fairly skipped away to his duties, leaving Kolin to smile his rare, lopsided smile unseen.

“Remember the lesson, Etinsmere,” he snarled, recalled to the boy’s mute presence by the wavering of a deck shadow. “A man trusted will repay good faith in kind. Though it pains me to say it, decisions of this nature will be yours one day.”

“Thank you, Captain.” The change of climate had done strange things to the _Tiger’s_ officers, he decided. Topasio and Marix speaking out of turn, and the Captain bestowing compliments! “Never happen in colder waters,” he breathed, making sure to collect his telescope before racing aft for his turn at the wheel. 

That it had happened at all would be enough to buttress his spirits enough for a thousand freezing nights on tiresome Northern patrols.

*

The sun was sinking over the Great Desert when the hail came from the fighting top, sending every man that could justify curiosity with some form of duty forward with a glass to stare. Glowing orange at the crown of Tashbaan’s conical island stood the Temple of Tash, with the great barrack block of the Imperial Palace on one side and the ancient Citadel’s tower on the other. Wide boulevards criss-crossed the upper slopes, while lower down thickset buildings huddled together like squatting dogs in a storm. A great stone bridge of arches linked the island with both sides of the river, and (most importantly to Drinian’s critical eye) restricted the great ships of the Imperial Fleet to the near side of the capital. A dozen of them – all galleys, all manned with a dozen officers craning from their decks to stare – dominated the western approach to the anchorage, protecting a flotilla of merchant brigs and barges anchored in chaos close to the city walls.

“Don’t like the look of it,” Sarin muttered with a countryman’s disdain. “Cramped an’ overcrowded! Prob’ly stinks like an open drain, too!”

“Most likely – in the lower streets anyway.” The grand avenues toward the summit were lined with grandiose mansions set in lush gardens filled with fruit trees. Fragrant enough, Drinian supposed, but lacking the wooded grandeur of Etinsmere or even the pastoral freshness of the Westerwood lands. “Anyway, _we_ shan’t be finding out! Only _Coldtrees_ and Zarn are permitted to pollute the filthy place any further.”

“While we cower under some damn’ rock in a rotten reed bed watched by a surly crew o’ rogues that’d ‘ave us chained to oars in no time. There again…” Sarin brightened considerably. “We’re rid o' those prancin’ ninnies of _ambassadors_ for a while.”

“Possibly for ever if the Tisroc takes against ‘em.” Coltrix might be a buffoon, but his presence hardly troubled Drinian. It was the contemptuous insolence of Aroshin Tarkaan he hoped never to encounter again.


	32. Thirty-One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sailors of all realms are bound by the fellowship of the sea, or so Drinian was taught from infancy. Does that hold true in the choppy diplomatic waters of the South?

With Coltrix and Zarn small dots aboard a Calormene gig, the order was given to bring _Tiger_ and her escorts about, surging on the strong current for their isolated anchorage below Tash’s Redoubt. And there, moored between two galleys, there was nothing to do, Drinian gathered, but wait.

The sheer black cliff soared out of thick reed beds clinging to foul-smelling mud flats, while the country beyond lay flat and marshy, save for the narrow stone trackway along which the Guardian of the Flame ambled at dusk on his tubby donkey. The Archenlanders watched him clamber to the top with fascination on the first evening, the bolder offering wagers on how far the middle-aged official would fall from the uneven path winding to the summit. Every man aboard their escorts, on the other hand, stared studiously across at the bland flatness of the opposite bank.

“Is it ill luck to watch the fire start?” Drinian wondered, squinting at the first smouldering of peat and greenish wood, the merest pinprick against a purpling sky. “Or are we proving ourselves unmannerly barbarians by watching a secret ceremony?”

“One way to find out.” Wat leaned perilously over the side rail, both hands cuped around his fleshy lips. “Oi, me mateys! Are we like to be struck by a thunderbolt for watchin’ yer deity’s fire get lit?”

A dozen swarthy faces lifted to stare for a moment before being anxiously averted. “Social bunch, ain’t they?” Wat commented, aiming the observation at the nearest galley’s poop. The officer on watch, distinguishable from his subordinates by the gold thread woven through his robe, tensed visibly.

“And not likely to be rendered friendlier by provocation.” He could hardly dispute his friend’s opinion, but an alien instinct stopped agreement on Drinian’s tongue. “We’re a fair way from Barwell now, Wat! A fellow could meet Lion only knows what fate in these hostile waters.”

“Aye, and they’ve a reputation for cuttin’ off noses ‘andsomer than mine.” Thumbing the offending object toward their companions Wat hauled himself back from the bulwark, the affronted officer forgotten. “Mebbe that mincin’ ‘alfwit Zarn’ll be missin’ them flappin’ ears when ‘e comes aboard! D’ you not know the simperin’ clot reported me to the Old Man for cussin’ when ‘e pushed afore me in the galley queue, Drin?”

“No, but I’m hardly surprised.” A horn echoed from both their escorts, and instantly the deck lanterns were dimmed, black figures scurrying below decks. “They must have a curfew even on board, poor devils! Time for me to take watch, I fancy: so if you _must_ start a squabble with our neighbours, be kind enough to wait until Marix takes my place at midnight!”

“’Ardly be much of a fight wi’ them quiverin’ ghosts!” Chortling, the sailor rolled toward his hammock, leaving Drinian to patter up the poop ladder with a fond smile on his face.

*

Before lunch the next day he was despatched with two oarsmen in _Tiger’s_ tiny gig to row around the galleon, taking soundings of the water’s depth lest the wind should blow (the Captain said) and compel them to weigh anchor in haste. Despite the secondary purpose of his mission – to bawl an invitation to the senior Calormene officers to dine aboard the Archenlandish vessel – Drinian suspected an ulterior motive.

By the scornful dismissal he received for his captain’s courtesy, he guessed the Calormenes were no less mistrustful.

Still, a pair of inquisitive sprites peered through their oar slits to watch his activities, and common courtesy (if not curiosity) compelled him to smile. White teeth flashed brilliant from the gloom, and the head of a youth approximately his own age popped through the slot. 

Drinian waved. The Calormene waved back, jabbing a long finger upward. Drinian nodded.

“What’s the feller mean?” Berix wondered. 

“He’s anxious lest an officer catch him being friendly to us, I imagine.” The youth pointed to the sounding line in Drinian’s hands and obligingly he flicked it upward, allowing a closer look. The same broad grins split two young faces. “The Old Man’d have my hide if he saw, so I’d sooner not ponder what their captains might do!”

“Skin ‘em alive, I’ll wager.” Over Berix’s sandy head Wat gave his friend a warning wink. “Coo! I’ve ‘eard tales o’ farm ‘ands bein’ flayed for idleness in these parts! Dry out their skins and use ‘em used for parchment, the Tarkaans do.”

“Get off!” Berix yelped, goggle-eyed with horror at the prospect of such a fate in his former employment. Whether he understood the exchange or not their Calormene observer laughed, drawing every eye upward.

A large hand thrust through the oar slit to catch around his throat and yank him back into the hold. A shower of cherry stones pattered around the _Tiger’s_ defenceless boat, ejected from the mouth of the hand’s dull-eyed and jowly owner. “Charming!” Drinian exclaimed, urging his oarsmen to action with a brisk nod. “You might have left the fruit on!” he added, rearing up in the bow to glare at the offender. 

He doubted the guffaws of his companions would improve the man’s gloomy disposition a jot.

*

On the next morning they were despatched again, every man keeping his back deliberately turned from their neighbour vessel. Feeling faintly guilty lest his cohort had been punished for their silent exchange, Drinian avoided the forward oar slit until the last moment.

As the gig nosed into position and the line began to slide between his hands, a cluster of cherries and a small bunch of luscious purple grapes dropped at his feet. Leaving the crew to fall upon them, Drinian shielded his eyes from the sun, peering into the galley’s dark gut and instantly picking out a familiar sparkle of teeth. “Quickly, Crain! Hand me those apples!” he hissed.

Without instruction the oarsmen edged their little craft into the galley’s lee, and shifting to adjust his arm, Drinian lobbed his gift into the heart of the opening, his quick eye detecting the blur of rapid movement within. A moment later, a grubby handkerchief popped through the gap. “’ope ‘e don’t try eatin’ the cores as well,” Wat rumbled. “Back us off, lads! Least we know some ‘o the blighters are friendly!”

“Only the lowly ones.” He forced himself to take the necessary sounding before biting into the sweet flesh of a cherry, its juice exploding deliciously against his tongue. “The captains have their orders from the Tisroc, and they’d as lief keel-haul us as have dinner with the Old Man! Makes me wonder what welcome _Coldtrees_ has had!”

“Not the one the pompous ninny expected, I fancy.” Dorix eased his oar inboard, letting the gig coast to rest beside her mother ship. “What’s your money on, Drin? Wat here’s laid a full Coronet on his having been boiled in oil for the court’s amusement.”

“’alf-Coronet says he’s in a dungeon blamin’ that damned scribe for lookin’ at a Tarkaan’s daughter the wrong way,” Crain piped up, smacking his loose lips with feigned relish. “Though Boson says they’d not dare treat King Nain’s personal representatives that way.”

“However much they may wish to.” It cheered the men to wager on ridiculous things, and though the Captain might disapprove, Drinian would not spoil their games. “My Quarter-Coronet – I’m an Etinsmere, tight as a cat’s behind as the saying goes – is on a worse fate than either: I’ll wager he’s allowed ten minutes with the Tisroc, then forced to pass the rest o’ the time with Aroshin Tarkaan! Think of it, Wat! Boiling in oil may hurt, but at least there’s an end in sight! Hour upon hour with that supercilious ninny and I’d be preparing the hot pitch myself!”

*

Loud were the disappointed groans late on the third afternoon when a galley flying all the gaudy banners of the Empire was spied crabbing from Tashbaan to their anchorage. The rotund figure of Coltrix was quickly identified at the bow, but of Aroshin Tarkaan there was no sign.

 _Tiger’s_ boat was lowered to fetch the ambassadorial pair, the officers summoned to the siderail and the company sent to cheer from the rigging. Red-faced and puffing, the skirt of his grey robe decorated with an inch-wide border of Tashbaan filth, his Lordship flopped onto the maindeck with a beringed finger already lifted in accusatory point.

“I trust you shall have a proper explanation of your _mischievous conduct_ for His Majesty, Captain!” he squawked, double chins all a-wobble. “What in the Lion’s name compelled you to invite your escorts aboard? Oh, we have had a full report of your wilfulness! Why! Our discussions with the Tisroc were progressing almost – _quite_ \- amicably before report of your recklessness arrived!”

“Recklessness, my Lord?” In contrast with his irate passenger’s puce fury, Kolin was icily controlled. “In our service, ‘tis deemed an act of courtesy to offer such an invitation to one’s fellow officers. I received no instruction from Anvard to the contrary.”

“The King entrusted this embassy to _me_ , you impertinent son of a scullion’s brat!” Tears dribbled from the corners of Coltrix’s rheumy eyes. Drinian, close enough to notice, gathered they were born of frustration that in the face of so gross an insult Kolin’s temper did not break.

His would, he acknowledged: but then, Coltrix was quite clerk enough to know the Master of Etinsmere’s lineage to be unimpeachable on both sides.

“He did not consider that a captain and company of his own Royal Fleet would so – so _debase themselves_ as to dabble in diplomatic matters. The Grand Vizier himself declared – did he not, Zarn? – that any servant of Calormen consorting with a foreign vessel’s crew would be most _severely_ punished.”

“Your Lordship will remember the Galamaia Accord signed four years ago?” The left side of Kolin’s mouth began to droop further, an ominous sign any crewman would identify. “During the discussions of the Lord Barsin’s embassy, this vessel hosted the five most senior officers of the Galmian fleet. His Majesty on our return expressed himself delighted with the hospitality voluntarily offered which – I recall his words precisely – _did so much to persuade the Ducal party of Archenland’s sincerity_. Topasio, bring her about. It would seem our embassy has failed.

“Now, my Lord: if you have specific complaint to make against me or any of my company, perhaps Master Zarn could draw up a fair copy? And in the light of our apparent _misconduct_ , I should like to hear some account of your dealings in Tashbaan. The better to defend myself you understand, should His Majesty command it on our return.”

“Damn’ fool prancin’ nincompoop!” Wat growled, glaring at the snail’s trail of slime and dirt that dropped from the ambassador’s hem as he chased the Captain the length of the ship and through the poop hatch. “ _Quite amicably_ , my foot! Fancy the Tisroc were lookin’ for an excuse to rid ‘isself o’ the yatterin’ fool!”

“Small blame to him.” With his toe Drinian flicked a clump of mud off to the scuppers running along the sides of the deck. “Coltrix is a vain secretary trying to play statesman, too puffed up with his imagined importance to see the Calormenes had no interest in his mission! Pah! D’you think Aroshin would have abused us, or their captains slighted ours, if their master wanted a treaty?”

“No, and His Majesty will understand it – or I hope he will.” Dorix sidled up, using Wat’s shadow to conceal him from Topasio’s hostile gaze. “By Aslan! What a lollygagging addle-brain Coltrix must be not to see!”

“Perhaps he does.” Clerks were not raised to the nobility for being fools, however ridiculously one might conduct himself with rank attained. “But my father was apt to say, weak men never manage reverses well.”

“Aye, an’ Coltrix is weak as Seven Islands rum – three parts water, one o’ spirits.” Pleased with his witticism Wat shuffled off to his duties, leaving a sombre Drinian to reflect upon his father’s wisdom.

The weak man Lord Tirian referred to had been a posturing princeling, smarting from the dismissal of his marriage proposal to a cousin of King Nain. Drinian suspected Miraz, King of Narnia, had not forgiven the snub, despite his brother’s granting of the Lady Prunaprismia and all her extensive lands a few months later.


	33. Thirty-Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The repercussions of the Calormene voyage make themselves felt, all the way to Anvard and beyond...

The effect of Coltrix’s report to Anvard was quickly felt. From grand diplomatic missions, the _Tiger_ was dispatched to patrol the farther seaways, apparently as a defence against looming pirate attack. In three cruises, each more tedious than the last and broken only by squalls of vicious weather, they encountered not a single hostile vessel.

Tempers frayed. The Captain withdrew into a surly shell. Shivering inside his heavy boat cloak through one sleet-soaked night watch after another, Drinian found himself longing for a cosy hearth and a quiet bed. Even Westerwood’s pastoral monotony appeared (however briefly) preferable to a storm-tossed seaborne disgrace.

Thus when the invitation was presented on their return to Barwell, not even Kolin’s resentful reception could keep the smile from his lips. “If it be His Majesty’s pleasure to see you at Anvard, Etinsmere, you had best trim that wild mane it pleases you to call _hair_ and shake the creases from your best tunic,” the Captain drawled, returning the immaculately printed card with a dismissive flick of the wrist. “And be sure to hire a respectable mount in town. No scrimping on a knock-kneed nag to spend on food and finery!”

“No, sir.” Careful that his salute be impeccable Drinian backed out of the cabin before breaking out into a delighted chortle. “Jealous old coot,” he declared to Dorix, unnecessarily occupied scrubbing the poop hatch. “Not sure whether to toss me off his ship or clap me in irons to spite all the lords of Anvard!”

“Best make a bolt for it before the old blackguard makes up his mind then! Will you take a letter for my sister? If you give it to the Princess…”

“Of course, if you have it written before morning.” He braced himself for the older man’s grateful slap before bounding up onto the poop to inform the Mate of his permission to leave the ship. “A week at Anvard and I’ll be longing to be aboard again,” he added, an effective stop to Topasio’s teasing grumbles. “Think of it! Two score o’ silly landsmen fretting that the wind messes their hair, and Prince Corin tripping one up at every third step! Oh, and I’ve instruction to find myself a suitable mount for the journey. Permission to disembark?”

“Aye, granted; and stay out o’ Cap’n’s way when you get back.” Chuckling, Topasio waved him to the gangplank, lowered and unguarded: a signal of faith in the general company Drinian doubted the Captain in his current mood would approve. “And – well, put a kindly word in for the Old Man with ‘is Majesty, will you, lad? He don’t care to show it, but Cap’n Kolin feels his disgrace right enough.”

*

Doubtful though he was that even a monarch as genial as Nain would care for a mere seaman’s opinion, Drinian repeated his pledge to the Mate before mounting a strapping bay gelding and clip-clopping inland at first light. Fine, drenching rain swayed like rippling sheets on the chilly breeze, forcing him to keep one hand on his mantle and use the reins for steerage alone as he passed desolate fields, the harvest long since in, and eerily deserted villages hunkered down beside burgeoning streams against the weather’s menace.

He ought to be galloping, he knew: be desperate to reach a good fire and a convivial meal. Instead he dawdled, savouring the space around him and the comforting absence of human clamour. Much as he loved his ship, there were times he wished himself a hundred leagues from the suffocating proximity of his shipmates.

Anvard’s turrets spiked the gloom too soon for his taste and with a gusty sigh he pinned on a smile, kicking his mount into a canter. His invitation had promised the presence of relations around the royal table, and Aunt insisted he would forget all his courtly training if it remained unused too long.

“No bad thing,” he murmured, lips turning up in a fond half-smile as he angled his mount’s steps toward the lowered drawbridge. “Considering what the courtiers of Narnia are become! Hi, usher! Pass word to His Majesty’s chamberlain, if you please: the Lord Drinian of Etinsmere awaits his gracious pleasure. I’ll see my horse’s needs tended and wait in the Public Hall.”

*

He was given time to throw off his sodden cloak and bring what order his fingers could contrive to the plastered mass of his sooty hair before they descended. Uncle Dar, leaning heavily on his left side and booming his distaste for old age and gout came first, with Aunt Katharina’s long hand cupped protectively under his elbow ready to offer support, however unwelcome. Corin’s shock of bright hair bounced behind her, the absurd angles of elbow and knee jabbing like a porcupine’s spines to keep his neighbour at a safe distance. His sister, her glossy dark locks twisted into an elaborate pile, sashayed alongside him, the rose satin of her overskirt swaying with each pace to reveal a cerise petticoat spattered with diamonds below. Next came two heralds and Lord Barsin, shuffling backward with heads bowed. Then, to the tinny blare of trumpets, King Nain himself appeared beneath the point of the high, arched doorway.

“My Lord of Etinsmere is our most welcome guest!” he almost shouted, his light voice drowned in the undignified clamour of greetings. Rolling his eyes at the Princess, Drinian sidestepped his uncle and the Prince, bending his back in a flourishing bow.

“Your Majesty is generous beyond my deserts,” he called back, silencing with his stentorian tones the hubbub royalty had been unable to subdue. “Forgive me! I seem to have spent too much time trying to be heard over gales.”

“Aye, there’s vile weather rolls form the east this time o’ year, and Your Majesty’s old _Tiger_ must creak and groan by now!” Retired from the sea for almost twenty years, the former Admiral had never recovered the courtly power of soft speech: a fact that made his wife shudder even as it consoled their nephew. “I keep telling that dam’ fool Gurin, boy – galleons are not like dinner tables, built to serve down centuries!”

“My husband has not lost his zeal for Your Majesty’s service,” the Lady of Westerwood cooed, grasping his arm hard enough, Drinian suspected, to bruise. The King smiled thinly.

“My Lord of Westerwood had earned the right to speak freely in our presence, dear lady; though perhaps, as a practical mariner, he was too long away from the Council Chamber when debate about the expense of our small fleet was aired. Now, perhaps we might continue to discuss naval strategy at leisure? We have wine and sweetbreads in the Privy Chamber, and I know the Prince is most anxious to hear my Lord Drinian’s opinion of the Imperial Galleys. We have a good fire blazing, my Lord: welcome tidings, I fancy, after such a ride!”

“Crack-brained folly even to send such a numbskull as Coltrix to that nest of imperial vipers!” Dar hollered happily, oblivious to his wife’s distress. Drinian cleared his throat dramatically, drawing as much of the scandalised attention from his indiscreet relation as he could.

“Very welcome, Sire,” he pledged, guessing by Anelia’s grin that he had missed the silken court tone he aimed for, though the whisper of a sigh from his aunt’s direction made the effort worthwhile. “As to the Imperial Fleet… even the pressed men admit they’d choose Your Majesty’s service over the Tisroc’s, even if it means fighting frozen canvas in a howling gale with the Thirty League Rocks looming before the bow! Sail handling’s a demon’s work, but at least there’s no officer with a club in his hands waiting to see a mistake!”

*

As the days progressed he found it easier to moderate his shipboard tones, and the slither of silk shirts began to seem as natural as the rasp of wool against his skin. Some of the stiffness softened from Aunt Katharina’s shoulders when they were alone, returning only when Uncle appeared to offer loud and imprudent opinions on every comment made.

“Your uncle’s become an oddity,” Corin remarked one freezing afternoon, when sleet and high winds made the King’s daily ride to hounds impossible. “Why! He called Barsin the doddering grandson of a stable hand this morning – _most_ offended, our venerable Chamberlain! It’s quite true of course, his mother _was_ younger daughter to my ancestor’s Master of the Horse, but really – it’s not the _done thing_ to mention it!”

“Small wonder Aunt’s so pale. She must go in terror of what he’ll say next.” Idly Drinian flicked the patterned velvet of the window-seat’s drapery. “I notice he hobbles more, too – the gout?”

“Father’s physician says he ought to take less rum and not insist on riding daily.” Anelia glanced up from the pair of flowing sleeves she was embroidering with the golden lily of the Royal house. “There! When the furrier lines them these will be perfect for the next ball. If Father were to command your captain to release you, Drinian, you _would_ be able to stay.”

“I’d never ask favours my shipmates could not all claim, Anelia.” The _small family suppers_ His Majesty had arranged most evenings were formality enough, and it took all Drinian’s strength not to shudder at the prospect of a full Court Ball. “And think of my poor aunt, trying to control Uncle and I at the same time! _Two_ rude seamen is one more than any ballroom should suffer!”

“I think you’d sooner not skip and simper with the rest of us,” Corin chortled, jabbing him with a bony finger. “And small blame to you! I should run away to sea myself before I’d dance attendance on the Countess of Lionwood again!”

“He stayed within a pace of her all evening with his tongue hanging out the last time she came,” his sister reported disgustedly. “And _please_ don’t monopolise her next time, Corin! People _will_ talk, and she must be past thirty - to say naught of being married - even if the Count _is_ old enough to be her grandfather! We’re not children any more: people _will_ gossip when they see the heir fawning over a woman report would make a beauty.”

“Don’t you think her pretty?” Corin winked at his neighbour. Drinian cocked his head, feigning contemplation.

“Not particularly.” Head held high, the Princess stalked from their cosy ante chamber, letting the heavy oak door swing almost shut on their shouts of laughter. “Some of us are not children, at least!” she shrieked back through the gap. “Don’t encourage him to folly my Lord, don’t you know they already call my brother _Prince Corin Cracked-Pate_ below stairs? Silly enough to flirt with a nobleman’s wife, they say, and make every good subject’s prayer _long life to good King Nain!_ ”

“That is pleasing to hear, my dear: though better in humble petition than being screeched through a doorway.” Genially smiling, the King peered over his daughter’s hunched shoulder at the two boys both leaping to sober attention before he could enter the room.

Behind him came a spry pixie in his fifties: smaller by half a head than the unimposing king, the owner of the brightest green eyes Drinian had ever seen and a complexion dark and lined as weathered timber. “My Lord Drinian, allow me to present a companion for your journey to ship. Captain Ram, this is Seaman Etinsmere, the youngest and (so we hear) most promising of your new company. Captain Kolin is transferred to the galleon _Anvard_ , my Lord. I dare wager his successor will have much to ask about your ship!”

“Naught of importance, Your Majesty. I’ll have the measure of the lady in a day or two, and know her the better for exploring first-hand.” The voice emerging from Ram’s creased throat was unexpectedly deep, the teeth showed by his broad smile large and gleaming. “Your Royal Highnesses – my Lord.”

“Captain.” His hand came up to salute of its own accord, winning, Drinian noted, a quickly-smothered smile. “It will be an honour to ride with you, if you’ll allow it.”

Anelia hissed audibly, but her father nodded and the little mariner flashed another wide grin. “The honour will be mine. I hear good things of your seamanship, though that’s not to be wondered at in the Lord Tirian’s son! I had the privilege of meeting your father many years ago, aboard Admiral Dar’s Royal Diadem. And, like most o’ the fleet, I learned the better part of my seamanship at the Admiral’s hand.”

“Say naught of this to your uncle my Lord, for his successor’s sake.” Nain rubbed his hands together, visibly satisfied with the courtesies observed. “Ram, you _will_ join us for dinner, of course? Nay, Drinian – no protests regarding rank! Yourself and Captain Ram are our guests, and therefore of quite equal status – you agree, Ram?”

“Gladly, Sire.” Ram tugged his prominent earlobe. “So long as my Lord of Etinsmere abjures equal status aboard ship!”

“Unless he looks for a cuffing from his messmates Sir, that can be guaranteed.” Drinian’s mother had often warned against his tendency to leap to conclusions, but on this occasion he could not stop himself.

The new Captain was going to be an improvement on the old.


	34. Thirty-Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a new captain and a new start aboard the galleon Tiger, but the echoes of the past are never far away for her youngest crewman...

The first favourable impression was confirmed on a companionable ride to Barwell filled with the kind of easy conversation no man, Drinian suspected, could ever have enjoyed with Captain Ram’s predecessor. 

He was asked no questions about the ship or crew, and the instant they were piped aboard Drinian realised why. Ram’s emerald eyes moved ceaselessly even as he shook hands with Topasio and Marix (both caught unawares by the civility, leaving Ram’s proffered hand hanging uselessly for an awkward moment). The furl of the sail; the condition of the planking; the shine on the handrails; and the wary glances cast by the crew. Ram assessed it all in a moment before cheerfully dismissing his officers with a request that the muster book be brought to his cabin. “Assemble all hands at six bells Messire Topasio if you please,” he added, pitching his voice to carry the unexpected courtesy the length of the ship. “I should like to know the names of my shipmates, considering that they already know mine.”

“Aye, Cap’n.” The Mate cocked a questioning eyebrow. Ram nodded. 

“By all means be about your business, gentlemen. We have two days to ready ourselves for two months’ cruise out beyond Terebinthia. Inform me of any shortfall in spares or provisions: the victuallers hereabout go in terror of the name o’ Ram, I’ll have our hold properly stocked before sailing! Drinian, if you’d be kind enough to bring the ship’s log with the muster roll to me.”

“Aye, Sir.” Then he would no longer be _Etinsmere_ aboard. Drinian bustled to collect the necessary documents, stifling the urge to whistle for joy. From Kolin’s bloodless lips, the title he revered had been sullied: a reminder that the master of Narnia’s great northern woods ought not to be serving another kingdom’s fleet. 

By his precise accent Ram betrayed himself connected to Archenland’s small nobility, a man neither impressed nor intimidated by the rank of his youngest subordinate. That alone Drinian decided, rapping confidently on the cabin door, might make life more comfortable in future!

*

The weather turned wild on their second day out, forcing _Tiger_ to crawl northward under no sail, men constantly straining at the oars to keep her clear of Narnia’s treacherous tidal shoals. “Hard to be so near home, Drinian?” Ram howled over the wind’s scream, waving a gloved hand shoreward. Shaking the spray and rain from his matted hair, Drinian forced his weighted shoulders into a shrug.

“In these conditions, Captain?” he yelled back, wrenching the recalcitrant wheel between stinging palms. “These southern bays are benign enough, but should we be forced close in off Etinsmere…”

“Aye, a rugged country, but the sandbars hereabout are as deadly as the rocks off your shores.” Unsteady as a stunned bear Ram swayed to throw his slight weight with Drinian’s against the galleon’s determined bucking. “Lion Alive my girl, enough of this madness! Forgive me – I talk to my ships far too much.”

“Fancy she appreciates it, Sir.” By a fluke of the storm _Tiger_ quieted momentarily, the ominous creaking of her hull stilled. “You know these waters?”

“Slightly. Marix! Get men to the pumps, we’re taking on a gallon a minute! Feel how she shudders, Drinian, with the leavings of that last wave in her guts? And look astern – is the storm lifting?”

He shoved the hair plastering itself into his eyes back and frowned at the surly banks of charcoal cloud in their wake. “Not by much, Sir!”

“Another hour and we’ll lie flat calm, mark my words.” Jewel-bright, Ram’s eyes twinkled beneath the brim of his waxed sou'wester. “And when we do, you’ll bring your sextant aft and take a few sights for me, agreed? Boson swears there’s naught but mathematics for you to perfect before you’ll merit your own command.”

“Marix is keen to be rid of me, Sir!” 

“Wat and Darin perhaps.” Ram winked, raising his rich bass to catch the ears of the two stout mariners struggling aft against the gale. “Idlers, drunkards and vagabonds: they’re the crewmen a wise boson tries to rid himself of.”

“Tha’s us, Cap’n.” Resolutely unoffended Wat brought a broad hand up to the clean cloth holding back his hair in salute. “Come to take me turn, Sir.”

“Good. Drinian, go below and dry off as best you can; and pay heed for a shout to the sails. I doubt our shipmate believes my pledge we’ll be in calm water within an hour, Wat.”

“Can’t says I b’lieve it meself, beggin’ your pardon, Sir!”

Ram shuffled across to the rail, leaving the grinning sailor to grip the great wheel alone. “I’d wager a Coronet on it gentlemen, but a captain should set a moral example to the blackguards of his crew,” he drawled, dismissing their laughing howls with an airy wave. “Remember, Drinian – the moment we’re set fair on our new course, bring your sextant and chalkboard to the poop. I’ll see if your calculations are as wild as Marix pretends. _The lad’s greatest weakness_ , he says. Wat! Do most tars not list wenches or fierce spirits there?”

*

They made Galma on the fourth day, anchoring in time to witness an extravagant sunset of crimson and gold behind the island’s peak. “Never seen the old rock more lovely,” Ram observed, resting on the landward rail between Dorix and the Mate. “I’m commanded ashore at the earliest moment Topasio, to pay His Majesty’s compliments to the Duke. Have the boat put out from breakfast; and inform the men who’d care for it that I’ll consider them all for a half-day’s shore leave.”

“Aye, Cap’n.” Topasio’s pale eyes narrowed. Ram flashed a toothy grin.

“Men that know themselves trusted will prove themselves worthy of trust – aye, even that sullen oaf Berix, in time! Yes, Crain, the boat’s crew may have the morning to themselves: only be sober enough to steer straight when you ferry me home! Yes, Drinian?”

“Captain, may I take a few hours leave?” Gnawing his bottom lip, Drinian considered the best way to phrase his request before settling on unvarnished honesty. “A servant of my family is settled in Galamaia, or close by - a deserter from Miraz’s war. I should like…”

“ _Noblesse oblige_ , young fellow. I understand.” Ram steered him to the mast’s foot, the pressure of a nut-brown hand on the shoulder keeping the tall youth’s head ducked closer to his own. “My father had a small estate near Barwell – my brother’s now, and welcome he is to it! The duty I feel to my crew – aye, and you’ll know to yours, one day – is not dissimilar to the obligation a good landowner feels to his people. Be an advantage to you to understand that, back in your own place when Miraz is gone.”

“That day’s so far away I might be Lord Admiral of Archenland first.” The harsh laugh tasted bitter in his throat, and Ram’s sympathetic squeeze of the arm only made Drinian feel worse. “I do my best not to remember Etinsmere, Captain, but Jostain risked his life to bring word to me. I owe it to him to see he’s at least comfortable in his new position.”

“I’ll ask at Rairton’s residence,” Ram offered, twisting sideways to shield his companion’s troubled countenance from the passing Boson. Drinian thrust a hand back through his hair.

“Thank you, Sir, but I know where to look.” In a low voice he related the tale of Jostain’s escape and Raimon the clothier’s kindness. Ram listened in silence, nodding his grizzled head.

“Come ashore with me,” he instructed at length, when the gong for dinner caused a wave of shoving, cheerful humanity to break around them. “And take what time you must. Now, don’t fret! We shan’t sail for Terebinthia without you, much as you may wish arriving there we had!”

*

The wharf was quiet when they stepped ashore after an early breakfast: Ram leading his party westward, up the wider main street to the Ducal Palac, while Drinian picked his way though alleys which, though ramshackle and rough, lacked the nightmarish squalour his childish imagination had given. Even traversing them took a fraction of the time he recalled. His longer legs, or Uncle Dar’s infernal meandering?

_A little of each, perhaps!_

At length the market square opened before him, surrounded by arcaded shops and filled with the merry prattle of gossiping vendors and customers quarrelling for a bargain. His eye was drawn instantly to the north-west corner, where rolls of coarse cloth were stacked outside a wide-open door. The windows on either side were draped with velvet, satin and lace, the sign above bright with new paint. 

Raimon’s business had prospered. Drinian hoped fervently that Jostain had benefitted by it.

Ducking to avoid the flapping folds of pink silk which swathed the doorway he stepped inside, blinking against the interior’s dusty dimness. “Can I be of service, sir?” a sweet voice trilled from his right side. Drinian jumped. 

“Beg pardon.” The girl who slipped around the counting table, small and dark-haired, her belly protruding in a sober dark gown, marred her respectful curtsy with a cheeky smile. “Uncle always says we ought not to give our customers frights, but where better can we watch the door than here?”

“I wonder you can see at all!” he shot back, reluctant to move among the stacked ells of fabric until his eyes had accustomed themselves to the gloom. The girl’s tinkling laugh died on her tongue.

“Are you the young lord that brought Jostain from Narnia?” she breathed, resting her hands on her swollen abdomen. Drinian nodded. 

“I hoped to find him. Is he well?”

“Aye, m’Lord.” Her words were oddly clipped; and even Uncle would surely have recognised the chill that had descended. “I’ll call him. Be kind enough to take a seat.”

“Thank you.” He remained standing, stupidly tense: ready to flee but frozen to the spot while she bustled to the back of the shop, summoning his old servant with an agitated quack. Casting a last frightened glance over her shoulder, she disappeared into another room.

“M’Lord!” Broader and browner than Drinian remembered, Jostain barrelled down a flight of narrow stairs at the shop’s rear, wiping his hands on a leather apron pierced by a dozen needles of differing lengths. “By the Conqueror’s Shield, I fair thought Salica were run mad yellin’ that you’d come! Where’s the silly girl gone, to fetch the old man? Sal! M’Lord Drinian don’t bite, and your uncle’s gone back to the country – don’t feel well in town he says, and small blame to him! This here’s my wife Salica you see, m’Lord – Raimon’s niece.”

“My congratulations.” Small wonder the girl was afraid of him. As she peered from the safety of the back room, Drinian extended his open palm, as he would to a nervous horse. “And will this be your first child?”

“Aye, sir, due before the year’s out.” Jostain’s pigeon chest had filled, and it swelled with pride as he embraced his young wife. “Old Raimon’s been proper kind. Taught me his business, and promoted me long afore I dared pay court to Sal. Fancy he knew I was sweet on her, mind.”

“Half Galamaia knew before you confessed, silly.” As she laid her damp hand in his Drinian shocked her by raising it to his lips. “What brings you to Galma, my Lord? News of Narnia?”

“None I’d care to tell, Madam.” Gallantry had failed to reassure her. He fell back on candour. “No: my ship’s in port, and while my Captain visits your Duke I hoped to see for myself that Jostain’s content in his new home.”

“That I am, m’Lord, but I’ll be back in Narnia the moment you’re established in your rights,” the gentleman announced stoutly. Salica almost muffled a moan.

Drinian shook his head, forcing his lips to an upward turn in defiance of every facial muscle. “Indeed you will not!” he retorted, his stomach flipping under her gratified smile. “Miraz is barely forty. We may both be in our dotage before Prince Caspian has his rights, and I shan’t see a family thrown into confusion for Etinsmere’s sake! 

“Your wife belongs here, and your child will think Etinsmere as alien as Westerwood is to me. Knowing exile myself, I won’t have a family endure it for my sake.”

“But m’Lord, your father – Milady…”

“Would say the same in my place.” Their strength flooded him, pushing to the edge of consciousness the sinking regret of another frail connection being irrevocably severed. “I hoped to find you settled and prospering, Jostain. I hope in ten years’ time, whether I be master of Etinsmere or trading barque, you still shall be. Mistress Salica, if he ever so much as suggests abandoning his duties for Etinsmere’s sake, in my stead give him a thrashing!”

The tall man’s pale eyes grew watery. “Spoke like Lord Tirian hisself,” he murmured, hugging his wife close. “But what of her Ladyship, m’Lord? Is she well?”

“Well at peace.” His throat tightened. He could say no more. 

He had no need.

“I’m right sorry, my Lord.” Greatly daring, Salica grasped his clenched fingers. “She was a good lady, I know from all Jostain says. How long…”

“More than four years.” Her sweet oval face swam before him, the sparkling eyes and slight, lopsided smile as clear as if he last saw them yesterday. “Her heart was broken in Narnia. No matter what the physicians say, Miraz killed her as surely as he did the King.”

“Like as not to be true.” With a nod to his wife, Jostain guided him to a chair. “Stay and take some tea with us, m’Lord, you can’t go gaddin’ about Galamaia upset. We could add a dash o’ rum to it, you bein’ a sailor now!”

“Not unless you’d have me sick over your accounts!” Impatient, he dashed the moisture from his eyes, bringing the bright, curious face of Mistress Salica into proper focus. “Thank you - you’re very kind, but I should go. Give my compliments to your uncle, Ma’am. I’m sorry I shan’t have time to stay and see him, but I should be aboard before the Captain returns, and we sail on the evening tide. Next time we put in at Galamaia, I’ll be sure to call again.”

“Always welcome, my Lord.” Salica’s smile was warm – grateful, he mused, as if his visit had settled an old dispute in her favour: and likely enough, it had. Without express instruction, he doubted anything would have prevented Jostain making for Etinsmere the instant news came of Miraz’s demise.

Though he left them with smiles and good wishes, black clouds the like of which he had not seen in all his service at sea rolled through his soul. He berated himself for selfishness while stomping about his duties, scaring away the friends who would have teased him and making himself feel an insufferable boor in the process. When the rest of the company danced on the maindeck, making the best of a favourable breeze and the Captain’s good nature, he mumbled an excuse and retreated with his demons to the hold.

For the first time ever, he didn’t shudder from the scorching trickle of the nightly tot down his throat. 

He only wished there was more.


	35. Thirty-Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a strange new island on the horizon. Drinian is about to discover that not all unknown territories are necessarily friendly...

He shook off self-pity in curiosity as _Tiger_ tacked south through lively seas and the Thirty League Rocks, signposting the approach to Terebinthia, loomed like a dragon’s jagged teeth into view through the spray ahead.

“Nasty beggars, them,” Wat remarked, scanning the waves that battered them with a borrowed telescope. “Only the top third o’ the things above the water, _and_ they spread for a league an’ more under the surface! Mariner’s graveyard, them great ugly blighters!”

“An _unwary_ mariner’s graveyard, Wat,” Ram cut in, strolling forward from the poop to join the idlers. “A sharp-eyed lookout and a sober skipper have little enough to fear - less than they have in the alleyways of Port Terebinthia I’ll wager! There’ll be no shore leave, but I _shall_ require an armed escort to the palace. Marix, see to it, please. Broadswords and quilted jerkins, but no armour. Able to defend ourselves, but not seeking confrontation.”

“I’ll leave Wat an’ Darin aboard then, Sir,” the Boson decided to laughter from all parties. “Drin, get your sword sharpened after dinner. Sarin, Dorix an’ Lain. Five of us enough, Cap’n?”

Ram nodded. “At your discretion. Boson. You know the company better than I.”

“Not for long if you’ll pardon the boldness, Sir.” 

“Gladly, and thank you.” Deep grooves cut down the sides of Ram’s mouth when he smiled. “Topasio! We’ll take in sail while skirting those devils I think. All hands to duty stations!”

*

There was a new vigour, Drinian noticed, in his shipmates’ response to orders since Captain Ram had come aboard. Not that Kolin’s had been a lax company: respect had remained for the man’s seamanship despite his moods. It was more that his successor, striding about deck and joking with his company, radiated assurance not merely in himself but in them. “Proper sailor’s man, that one,” Crain declared that evening in the gloom of the hold. “Thinks of ‘isself as one o’ the crew, not better than us. Always did think Kolin were ‘oldin’ ‘is nose against the stink o’ the common seaman.”

“Aye.” The knot of men around him growled their assent. “He’s troubled by this call at Terebinthia.”

“’e’s right to be. Never been there, Drin?”

He shook his head. “Nest o’ pirates, cut-throats an’ thieves it is,” Wat continued. “Coo! Even the ‘arlots wear stolen diamonds in their ears, and don’t look at a man unless ‘e’s got a purse o’ gold to offer, so they says! The Old Man’s wise to want an escort, but better the ‘ole company under arms than a few stragglers!”

“I’m intrigued.” And a little afraid too, not that he would confess as much to men Drinian doubted had known a second’s fear in their lives. Retreating to his hammock he tried to stop his ears to the grisly tales they told of incautious visitors leaving their bones on the approaching island, reminding himself the Captain would never endanger his crew. 

Still, his slumbers were disturbed by bloodstained nightmares.

*

If they noticed his pallor next morning his friends were too kind to mention it; and too preoccupied, perhaps, by the flotilla of dirty schooners and ill-painted barques that scattered from Port Terebinthia’s shell-shaped bay at their approach. “Word’s got out,” Topasio growled, sending a pair of archers to the fighting top with a wave of the hand. “Less o’ the bast – _blackguards_ to dodge on shore, Sir.”

“Indeed.” Ram watched with narrowed eyes as the small vessels tacked as far away from _Tiger’s_ bulk as the breeze allowed, clearing her path into port. “Landing party to the entryport! Topasio, lower the boat the moment we’re moored. The quicker this errand’s done, the happier we all shall be.”

In grim silence they rowed from deep water to the harbour wall, watched by a hundred pairs of hidden eyes. Drinian could feel their resentful scrutiny though people kept their distance, scuttling from the street and closing doors and shutters behind them. “Anyone would think we were an invasion force!” he marvelled.

“I only wish we were! Clear out the scum and make the place safe for respectable folk.” Dorix’s hand was on his sword hilt before his foot had touched the quay. “Phew! Stinks of stale rum and fish guts!”

Port Terebinthia was the first place Drinian had seen that made Galamaia’s wharves seem reputable. Its taverns, their doors blocked by big, heavy-eyed brawlers, were ramshackle; and more than one tradesman’s sign had a hole the size of a large fist through its middle. Ports, he knew, were often coarse places, but most aimed to cover their brutal sides with at least a veneer of decency.

The morning was fresh, yet a heaviness settled over him on the brisk march into town, oppressive as an oncoming storm. They pushed their way in a solid phalanx through a crowded marketplace where the sweaty reek of too many bodies was intensified by the heat of a dozen small furnaces, into which sullen fellows with scarred faces and wary eyes fed a steady stream of broken gold or copper objects. 

Closely packed behind rickety tables, hoarse old traders croaked their wares, guttural as a flock of ravens: diamond brooches; gold and silver; rich cloth and fine wine, in among daily bric-a-brac. “Don’t look too close at the goblets, Drin,” Marix rumbled against his ear. “See they’ve scratched off the owner’s marks? Not a man-jack of ‘em ever did an honest day’s work for their finery.”

“Enough, Boson.” Ram’s rebuke sounded taut. Even he, Drinian decided, was not immune to the hostile glances cast their way by locals a sensible man would not challenge lightly. A red-haired fellow his own height but twice his bulk barged purposefully past, sending him reeling. 

Automatically, he gripped his sword’s curved hilt. “Keep your temper, lad.”

“Aye, Sir.” Damn, the words hurt his tight throat! At least the uncomfortable press of humanity was thinning as they reached the market’s edge, and Drinian released the breath he had been holding, dizzy more with relief than the rush of air filling his lungs. A wider road opened ahead, large stone buildings standing proud above the timbered chaos of the lower town, and though his flesh still prickled ominously under too many unfriendly stares, he had space to set back his shoulders. Room to swing his sword. 

He was shocked by the combativeness of the thought. Terebinthia’s poisoned atmosphere was affecting him no less than its residents.

At the massive palace gates their papers were inspected by a gruff guard whose shaven head shone as bright as the curved billhook in his fist. “Come with me,” he snarled at Ram. “Men! Ale for the Captain’s party! You’ll wait comfortable enough in the gatehouse.”

“Thank you.” The response was instinctive, and earned him a sneer. Drinian arched a quizzical brow. 

Another man, shorter and stout, snorted. “Sit and drink with us.” _And don’t try being clever with me_ , his narrowed eyes advised. Obediently, Drinian slouched onto the stone shelf around the whitewashed guard chamber which he gathered served as seating.

While the Archenlanders followed his lead the group of Terebinthians in yellow leather tunics remained standing, each with a tankard in one hand and his spear in the other. Cautious, Drinian raised a pewter mug filled with foaming golden liquid to his lips, surreptitiously watching his elder companions. “Not bad,” Lain declared.

“Better than that ladylike pink wine we get from your sloops. Tastes like soap an’ strawberries mashed together!”

“That would be the Barwell stuff.” Drinian grinned at the impudent speaker, winning a dubious twitch of the mouth in return. “By the Lion’s Mane, Dorix, you can’t dispute it’s sickly wet! Prefer Westerwood’s myself - more bite to it.”

“Aye, the wines from the borders are sharper,” Dorix agreed, giving up the struggle to sit comfortable on solid granite. “This is decent ale, though. Brewed at the castle, is it?”

“Aye” Scratching his hooked nose, the eldest guard relaxed visibly. “Better than you’ll get in town, and half the cost. Stronger, too.”

“I’ll say! The young ‘un’d best not drink too deep, else need carryin’ back to your ship!”

“I’ll manage, thank you.” Drinian took a hearty gulp. Marix thumped him on the back.

“Lad’s been at sea long enough to manage his liquor, though I fancy he’ll never develop a dangerous likin’ for it. Captain!”

“We have leave to return to our ship. Thank you, gentlemen, for your hospitality. We’ll not trouble you to escort us away.”

“Did it not go well, Cap’n?” Marix hissed the instant they were out of the cavernous, echoing lodge. Ram lifted his bony shoulders.

“No better or worse than one would expect, faced by a puppet and his master,” he muttered. “Drinian, lead the way. Let’s test your navigational skills, especially after a tankard of their pernicious brew! Oh, Tonlock wrung his hands against King Nain’s stern protests while Minister Wenlock pledged to have our _legitimate grievance_ investigated with _all due urgency_. The boy’s striding out quite steadily I think, gentlemen! No ill effects from the alcohol that I can see.”

“Got the stomach for it, Cap’n, just not the inclination.” Marix’s words were muffled but the merriment behind them sliced clean through the slight fuzziness inside Drinian’s head. “Coo! All of fifteen now, and not a trace o’ vice that I can see! You need takin’ properly in ‘and, Master Drinian, else you’ll be shamin’ the whole fleet with your virtue!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Dawn Treader is (according to her captain's report) approached by pirates (Terebinthian by their rig) in the early stages of her eastern journey. Perhaps it's not an uncommon encounter?


	36. Thirty-Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's survived the hostile waters of Terebinthia, but back in home port, how will Drinian cope in with the tricky tides of the Royal Court at Their Royal Highnesses' birthday ball?

He stoutly denied any suggestion of peakiness the next day, though his head ached abominably and his mouth was desert-dry until teatime. Dorix made a show of raising his voice whenever he came within range, but as the day wore on and the truncheons stopped beating inside his skull, Drinian found the strength to retaliate.

It was gratifying to see his comrades were no more immune to the effect of potent liquor than he, even if they were spared annoying quips about their imagined virtue.

“As well our shipmate can be trusted to conduct himself like a gentleman,” Ram remarked on reading the royal decree awaiting him at Barwell at their cruise’s end. “Their Royal Highnesses cordially invite His Grace of Etinsmere to their sixteenth birthday ball at Anvard, and I’d as lief see my ship represented by an officer of unimpeachable discretion! Oh! Had I not mentioned your impending promotion, Drinian?”

“Perhaps I misheard, Sir.” A lusty cheer went up from the maindeck, stopped by a sharp slice of Drinian’s hand. Ram grabbed it and shook vigorously.

“You’ve the authority aboard already, young man. All you lack’s the gold button on your tunic. I dare say His Majesty will draw notice to it at the ball. Unless your aunt persuades you to appear in landsmen’s clothes?”

*

Drinian might have shuddered at the prospect of being turned into a courtier, but so proud was the Lady of Westerwood to watch Lord Gurin fasten the badge of his exalted rank to his collar that any disappointment in seeing her nephew in the staid grey naval tunic at court was swiftly overcome. Surrounded by the denizens of Anvard in peacock splendour he cut a striking figure more admired, Aunt opined, even than he should have been in the crimsons and dark greens she preferred to set off the dark colouring of Etinsmere.

“Proves I’m making myself useful in exile, Ma’am, which is more than can be said for many o’ the guests hereabout.” Prowling the pleasant turret chambers allocated for their stay, he traced a trimmed fingernail along the skein of gold silk running through the vivid wall hangings. “What does Hastin’s grandson _do_ , save maunder about penning dire poems for the Princess? Or that puffed-up absurdity Arn? Too old for the schoolroom and too useless for the King’s service it seems to me!”

“His Majesty is fond of both.” Thin lips pursed, Katharina Westerwood leaned against the outer door, blocking the keyhole with her hip. “And _do_ moderate your voice, Drinian! I _knew_ sending you to sea so young was a mistake – you’re turned into another loud, common seaman like your uncle.”

“And my father?” Guilt flashed across her face, a match for the piercing pain in his chest. 

“My brother was high enough in the King’s favour for his tactless ways to be applauded,” she said stiffly. “At least as long as his friend held the throne! You are reliant on the charity of Archenland and – I hope – wise enough to _trim your sails_ accordingly.”

“Yes, Aunt.” It was less the rebuke that caused tears to sting his eyes than the bitter truth behind it. “I’ll simper and sigh as prettily Horstin if I must. Only - don’t expect me to linger!”

“I know it humiliates you.” The tension drained from her, leaving her heavily-powdered cheeks to sag with age and wear. “I hoped the pain of exile would fade when you found activity to your taste, but…”

“It doesn’t hurt.” The lie was sour on his tongue. Thrusting his fingers through his neatly combed hair Drinian threw himself onto a convenient couch, expelling a mirthless laugh. “So long as I don’t _think!_ I wish people would stop talking of Miraz falling and my being free to go home, Aunt! It won’t happen. This is my home now, and the sooner I accept it, the better.”

“You are your father’s son, and Tirian was apt to rail against aught he could not control.” She ghosted to brush a kiss against his crown. “Etinsmere is yours, and so long as you’ve breath you’ll never be free of it! Now, sit up and comb your hair again. While you _must_ preen and prance for a foreigner’s court, we’ll ensure none does it more becomingly!”

*

King Nain had gathered every noble family to celebrate his progeny’s birthday, and Drinian was astonished to find at least one of the official hosts even less enamoured of the event than himself. “Have you ever seen anything more _humiliating?_ ” Anelia exclaimed, brushing out her gold silk skirts with fierce strokes that snagged her painted nails. “Corin! Stop capering like an infant. This is _supposed_ to mark our maturity, whatever the stuffed toys and stilt-walkers might suggest!”

“I thought Your Royal Highness would welcome the attention,” he murmured, concealing the words in his formal greeting bow. The Princess shot him a vicious look even while elegantly extending her fingers for his kiss. 

“Two hundred people squalling in the ballroom, and the food all gone stale because it was set out before we arrived; Father telling everyone how we ended in a heap as infants while dancing for Uncle Caspian’s ambassadors… urgh, and my Lord Nerix, how _kind_ of you to come, and my Lord and Lady Riverglade! You know the Lord Drinian of Etinsmere, of course? Oh, a poem for my birthday, how _charming!_ Horstin, did you know Nerix and Arn write verse too? You really must form a society! Please, do fetch drinks, and I believe you’ll find Corin at the buffet table.”

With the stuttering of her admirer in his ears Drinian escaped into the gaudy ballroom, ducking his lofty head to avoid the streamers and garlands tumbling from the roof beams. Anelia’s false trill rang out above the hubbub of too many trivial conversations, the gracious hostess personified. So long, he thought, as one didn’t look into her coldly unresponsive eyes.

Prince Corin on the other hand positively overflowed with party spirit, particularly in the presence of the Countess of Lionwood (whose elderly husband, having a tendency toward gastric discomfort, had been advised to forego the late hours and rich food on offer), a statuesque blonde with amber-gold eyes and the flattest, most somnolent speaking voice Drinian had ever heard. “Won’t you have another salmon pastry, Reginala?” the Prince volunteered, slightly breathless from an energetic spin to the whistles of the court musicians. “I say! Have you seen the new button on Drinian’s tunic? He’s an Officer of the Fleet now, isn’t that splendid? Father says I’m to have a uniform soon, and an honorary Admiral’s rank. Does that mean you’ll have to salute me?”

“I assumed I was supposed to in any event, Your Highness.” Suiting the action to the word, Drinian snapped a hand to his brow. Lady Lionwood whined her monotone laugh. 

“A pity your uniform must be such a sad colour,” she droned. “Would not Lord Drinian better suit dark green or blue, my Prince?”

“Dashed annoying that he suits everything!” Corin cawed, slapping his friend lustily on the back. “Ah, The Lionwood March! In your husband’s absence, Reginala, may I have the honour?”

“The honour is mine, my dearest Highness.”

The tips of Corin’s ears turned pink. Seizing her hand lest any other dare steal her from him, he hurried his trophy to the head of the hastily-forming crocodile of couples.

“Are you going to laugh at Corin or dance yourself, my Lord?” The subtle hum of her voice close to his ear made him start. Gamely, Drinian presented his hand to the smirking Princess. 

“If Your Grace will be my partner, I’ll try to remember Aunt’s strictures about _not thumping around_ ,” he drawled. Anelia’s chortle turned a score of heads their way.

He rather thought she meant it to. 

Having once grasped his hand, she showed no great willingness to release it. “I’m hiding,” she explained, leaning closer than the dance required in passing halfway down the set so her breast feathered his chest. "Horstin is _sighing_ again, and Nerix trots at my heels like a drowned pup. Corin thinks them comical.”

“As funny as he is, fawning over Lady Lionwood?” 

“Ha! Now that _is_ funny!” she snorted. “Why, at least _my_ suitors are near in age, even if Nerix _does_ look thirteen at best.”

“Twelve, surely?”

“Brute!”

“What better can you expect of a rough sailor?”

“Who dances as lightly as any prince.” The music stilled with them in the centre of a clapping circle, their fingers twined and matching mischievous smiles curving their lips. “Would you not appreciate a breath of air?”

“I see the doors to the rose garden have been opened, if Your Highness would care to join me?”

Her long eyelashes fluttered ridiculously. “Delighted, my Lord.”

The tranquillity of the garden caught him off-balance after the clamour indoors. “Do you wish yourself a dozen leagues out from Barwell?” his companion wondered.

“At this instant – no.” He grinned down into her fine-boned oval face, gilded silver by moonlight. “Three minutes ago, a hundred leagues would have been better.”

“Aye.” Their wandering – aimless, he thought – brought them to a halt behind a tall yew hedge, screening the extent of the lawns from the castle. Anelia sighed deeply, and he glanced down again.

Swift as a striking snake she brought both hands to his nape and tugged. Before his lips could part in protest hers were crushed against them, and thoughts of objecting flew straight out of his head.

How many seconds passed before he reeled back, lips tingling and eyes popped, Drinian was never sure. “Wha’ – Anelia!” he spluttered, longing for the sturdy balance he enjoyed at sea. Pressing her fingers to her mouth, she arched her finely-shaped brows at him.

“Why! Has a lady never kissed you, my Lord of Etinsmere?” High and giddy, his title ended on a definite giggle. 

“Have you ever kissed a gentleman so?”

Wayward glee exploded in a gusty chortle. “When the only gentleman under forty in the castle is usually my brother? Hateful thought!”

“Not the only one, surely, though Aunt would be flattered to hear I qualify for the name.” He traced the outline of his bottom lip experimentally with his tongue, acutely aware of her watchful stare. “What of Nerix, or Horstin? Or the ushers?”

“Ushers are not _gentlemen_ ,” she reprimanded, ignoring his glare. “Nerix – did you estimate twelve? He’s eighteen, but no one would believe it! As to Horstin, _that_ would be like kissing a raincloud! You - you’re not going to complain to Father, are you?”

With the strange, sweet taste of her mouth on his and his head still spinning? Drinian brought her hand up for a true courtier’s kiss. “Not unless you intend telling tales to my aunt!” he pledged, laughing at the way she brightened. “But we ought to go in, before anyone notices we’re gone.”

“I dare say such practicality is useful at sea.” The proud dame who objected to stuffed toys at her party skittered like a carefree child toward the castle. “Hurry _up_ , Drinian! We cut the cakes at midnight, and mine is strawberry sponge!”


	37. Thirty-Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's experienced a lot since stepping aboard the Tiger for the first time, but there's a great deal more - in wildly different circumstances - for Drinian to discover about the sailor's lot...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Attention is drawn to a change in tags for this chapter. I'm not sure what Narnia's age of consent might be (can't imagine C.S. Lewis gave it a thought) but what's implied and off-screen at the end of this instalment would definitely count as under-age where I grew up.
> 
> There's also some very nasty (but not too graphic) naval discipline going on in this chapter. Being a history geek, I tend to come across these things...

His stories of the royal feast we much requested back aboard, but Drinian measured every word with care, determined his nightly tot should not summon events in the rose garden to his tongue through their placid cruise north toward Narnia. “Your waters are infested with villains nowadays,” Ram remarked on the seventh evening, lounging against the taffrail during Drinian’s post-dinner watch. “To the extent even the coward _Miraz_ takes action. Two brigs are called the _Royal Fleet of Narnia_ , now though where he’s found ‘em Lion alone knows.”

“Mortain did lay down two small vessels the year before my father died. The _Royal Telmar_ for defence against piracy, and _Etinsmere_ as a trading ship,” Drinian remembered, a shiver ripping through him at the thought of a craft bearing his province’s proud title in the traitor’s service. “But if they’ve been laid up all these years… why, they’ll be rotted through! And how will he man them?”

“Convicted felons from all accounts. I heard it from Par, the captain of His Majesty’s ship, while you were _gadding about_ at court. Fellow named _Solivar_ is placed in command. Know of him?”

“A cousin of Father’s, and the most liverish lubber imaginable.” 

“Aye, well he now commands the _Great Miraz_ and _Lady Prunaprismia_ against marauding pirate hordes, so long as the poor fools sailing ‘em don’t ram each other leaving port! By _commands_ , of course, I mean waves ‘em off from the shore.”

“Be surprised if they could drag him onto the beach!” Still, Papa’s ships were being manhandled from their abandoned anchorages, and at least one of the poor wretches tossed aboard might learn to cherish the sailor’s life. The proud little _Etinsmere_ though, renamed for a usurper or his obstreperous wife! 

Drinian added another vow to the list he had been collecting in exile. _I’ll see her restored to her proper title, some day!_

*

“All hands to witness punishment!” The strident boom of Marix’s bass echoed the length of the hold, turning every man from his bed. Drinian tugged his shirt straight, teeth grinding as he strove for calm. _Tiger_ was held in port for this, and every man aboard her would have sooner been anywhere else. Captain Ram had issued his orders in a quiet tone, the tautness of skin pulling over the bump of his nose an eloquent betrayal of his own distress.

Keel-hauling. The Old Man had seen it done, he said, many years ago. The last time a drunken sot of a presser had dared raise his hand against an officer of King Nain’s fleet. 

Determined to ignore the chains jangling in his belly he climbed through the aft hatch, following Dorix to their station amidships. Across the Barwell Roads the companies of twenty vessels matched them, anchored like ducklings around a central galleon: _Anvard_ – Captain Kolin’s command - around which a strong chain had been thrown like a giant’s belt. 

On deck the prisoner stood bound at hand and foot, secured at the waist to the main rope. “Least they’re doin’ it amidships, not stem to stern,” Wat grunted, shuffling uneasily at Drinian’s shoulder. “By the Lion! Many a-time I’d’ve swung for the smirkin’ old devil meself… lucky I’d mates to restrain me!”

“Aye.” Dorix’s knuckles cracked noisily. “Sorry. Look at him! Never saw such a miserable scrap of a mutineer in my life!”

“Not that you keep company with rebels, I trust?” The Captain’s dark tan could not conceal tension’s underlying pallor. “All hands! Atten- _shun!_ ”

Two guards hefted the prisoner over the port rail, his splash drowned out by the groans of his shipmates hauling for all they were worth on the girth chain. Drinian clamped his lips tight, pressing his fingers together in a rhythmic count. One second. Two. Three. Four. How long did it take to drag a dead weight the width of a galleon?

The shouts from the _Anvard_ redoubled. Time slowed. “He must be drowned!”

“If he’s lucky.” Dorix, unfazed by battle, sounded as if he might be sick. “Might have his head sliced off by a barnacle by now. _Anvard’s_ not been careened for a year at least.”

“Look!” Ripples disturbed the water in the galleon’s lee. The chain around her shuddered and strained. “He’s up!”

Inch by agonised inch a bloody, misshapen lump scraped up the ship’s near side. What must be the criminal’s head lay twisted at a grotesque angle toward the left shoulder. 

Drinian’s stomach lurched as it never did when struck by a hurricane’s swell.

Willing hands stretched from the maindeck to heave the victim (he could think of the condemned man no other way) aboard, leaving his trail of blood and snapped barnacle fragements like a monstrous snail’s down the planking. Men lunged forward to carry what remained below for treatment which, Marix muttered, would likely be worse than the wounds themselves. Then the clang of a gong reverberated around the anchorage, and a sigh broke loose across Barwell Bay.

“Man the capstan!” The Old Man’s caw wound like a relieving spell around petrified limbs. “Drinian, take the conn and set course for sea the moment she’s free. _Now_ , not next week, you laggardly devils, we’ve a long journey to Brenn before us!”

“Aye, that’s distance enough ‘twixt us an’ this damned place,” Berix lumbered forward to plant his chest against the capstan’s bar, more eager to leave the land than Drinian had ever believed he could be. “Thought them southern devils was cruel, but this…”

Assent rumbled from stem to stern. Wrapping his fingers around the wheel’s smooth rim Drinian watched the same bustle break loose across the anchorage until only the _Anvard_ remained moored. “We must have discipline, my boy,” Ram murmured, leaning over on the pretext of checking the binnacle lamp. “However arbitrary it may seem.”

“A rebel against his King on land would be hanged, Sir.” _Or decapitated by broadsword if his very decency threatened a pretender to the crown_ , he amended with a mental shudder. “Is such a death not punishment enough for the sea?”

“The fellow may survive.” Unlikely, and both knew it. “And the laws of the Fleet are as old as the waves themselves. Oh, I’d wish for an enlightened service such as you imagine, Drinian: every man a cheerful volunteer, with a captain’s authority supported by naught beyond his own good character and respect for the rules. Should the day ever come when we man our ships from upright citizens, not the leavings of prison and tavern, such barbaric practises may cease; but not in our lifetimes, I’ll wager! Now, steady on the tiller. The lady’s yours to guide between the sandbanks and that damned infernal archipelago of windswept rocks. A better test of seamanship you won’t find in charted waters!”

*

The next time he thought of the keel-hauling, four days into his leave on Brenn, it was with mild displeasure in his own callousness. The miscreant might be dead. His cruel fate might have triggered the very mutiny it was intended to prevent, and he had given it not a thought in two months.

“Must be as hard-hearted as a Calormene – or a captain,” he mused, pausing to gaze into a baker’s window midway down Redhaven’s sprawling main street. The sun was sinking, staining the lapping waves at the wharf bloody as a pulped corpse, and the shutters were being pulled across the fronts of the more reputable businesses farther from the sea. On a heavy sigh Drinian ambled into the middle of the cobbled street, idly kicking a rotting cabbage down the gentle slope. Hands thrust into his jerkin pockets he began to pick his way, careful not to step on the mud-filled cracks between cobbles. 

Intent on his new game, he missed the first raucous halloo from the doorway of an especially dingy hostelry perched on the crossroad between port and town. “Shore leave’s s’posed to be fun, lad!” Darin slurred, stumbling over the low threshold. “C’m an’ join us, we’re even seein’ to it _Berix_ enjoys ‘is liberty better ‘n you!”

Drinian eyed the tumbledown structure with its loose roof slates and its missing window pane for an instant. “Why not?” he heard himself exclaim, giving his friend a genial push in the right direction as he entered. “Where _is_ Berix, by the way? I thought he had leave so long as he remained in company with a trusted officer. Good evening, Marix.”

“Drin.” The grinning Boson had one arm around a tankard, the other encompassing a buxom brunette. “Thought you was seekin’ word o’ your lost countrymen with the Old Bugger.”

“Captain’s gone to Muil; and I know now all seven were aboard when their ship sailed on.” He couldn’t drag his eyes from the Boson’s hand, meandering over the square neckline of his companion’s garish sacking gown. 

Darin slapped a tankard onto the stained table before him. “Started reading minds?” he asked, taking a grateful glug. 

The coarse red wine warmed his innards, yet did nothing for the odd dryness about his mouth. As his eyes adjusted to the tobacco-stinking gloom he could make out a dozen small tables, each occupied by a party like his: a few muscular fellows, sailors all; and bright-painted, scarce-dressed girls flaunting creamy bosoms and puckered mouths. 

His skin began to prickle pleasantly. This was clearly one of those _dens of iniquity_ Aunt could barely bring herself to warn against.

He sensed her presence behind him the instant before her slender fingers curled through the hair lying against his neck, her breath falling clammy on his ear. “A handsome new shipmate you’ve brought to our table, Marix! Don’t start, young master, I bite only when asked to – ain’t that so, Boson?”

“Gentle with the lad, Elisa, the Old Feller’ll have our ‘ides if aught befalls our Drin.” Ungallantly pushing his lady friend from his lap, Marix stretched to plant a smacking kiss on the newcomer’s upturned lips. Daintily pulling a handkerchief from the lace trim around her plunging neckline, Elisa flicked a cascade of fiery copper curls into his face.

“Marix and I are old friends, Drin,” she drawled, leaning forward until a full breast’s soft weight rested on his shoulder. “Move along the bench like a gentleman and give me room to sit! Is this your first visit to Redhaven? I should remember a face as handsome as yours, had you moored here before!”

“Y-yes.” How was a man supposed to converse when a woman’s fingers were wandering at will from his nape and down? Vainly hoping his smirking friends would miss the trembling in his fingers, he seized his drink and sucked greedily. With a slanting smile, Elisa pried it from his grip.

“Well, I trust it shan’t be your last,” she murmured, using the pad of her finger to wipe a last drop of wine from his top lip. “How old is this fine gentleman, Marix?”

“Sixteen - or thereabout.” Marix’s mild untruth came from a great distance that made the words hazy. Drinian allowed his hand to be picked up and placed against the woman’s cool white flesh. 

Elisa loosed a throaty chuckle that sang through his head until he could hear little above its melody. “ _Quite_ of an age to keep company,” she purred, raising herself until his hand fell, boneless, against her heaving chest.

He heard Marix guffaw, and Darin whoop; felt himself stand, though the stone floor felt soft as quicksand beneath his boots. Her rich, musky scent surrounded him, the rustle of gown and hair drowning the raucous din of the inn. 

Cool air fanned his cheek as she pushed open a broken-down door and urged him through. One last desperate, coherent thought flashed through his brain as her arms locked around him and her mouth came down, hot and hungry onto his.

_Ugh! They’re smoking fish in the yard!_


	38. Thirty-Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The journey home from Brenn has surprises in store. One of them at least is going to change everything for the galleon Tiger and her youngest officer

Though he approached the lowered gangway with shoulders squared and hands clenched in readiness for a teasing next morning, his generous shipmates offered no more than their accustomed cordial hails, and by late afternoon, with _Tiger_ cruising south westward for home Drinian had allowed himself to relax, hollering the chorus of a familiar shanty while heaving on the halyard ropes. The sun was shining, he had pledge of overdue pay waiting at Barwell, and the galley master was promising fresh goose for dinner. 

All he needed was the Royal Standard of Narnia in place of Archenland’s red cross on yellow ground to make all well with his world.

Even to ask for that, he acknowledged after a hearty feast, lounging below the poop ladder with a fishing line cast forgotten over the side, was churlish while Caspian languished, a usurper’s prisoner in all but name; while Ninian and the Glasswater girls, Lund the younger of Beaversdam and Mallica Passarid doubtless chafed against the restraining hands of stern guardians beneath the red, green and gold of their own pennants. He had the quiet ocean, a stout ship and liberty to do precisely as he pleased. Not for all of Etinsmere’s lush woody glades would he abandon that.

“Pensive this evening, Drinian.” He bolted to attention, forcing his fine-boned Captain to lift twinkling eyes. “Regret leaving Redhaven, do you?”

“Why should I, Sir?” He hadn’t felt so guilty since Mamma had caught him dropping ants into Kathi’s underclothes, and somehow he knew the burnish of wind and sun would not hide the hot blood staining his cheek. Ram cocked his salt-and-pepper head.

“Oh, no great reason,” he drawled, mischief bubbling out at his subordinate’s shuffling discomfort. “By the Lion’s Mane lad, you look like a pup that’s set for whipping! What a tar does with his leave’s no concern of a wise captain, unless it diminishes his obedience to orders aboard – like that dam’ fool Berix having to be carried up the gangplank dead drunk at midnight. Did you not hear? Discovered face-down in the filth outside Madam Mirilana’s establishment. Not a _salubrious_ place, but preferable to bedding down in a gutter dung-heap!”

“Aye, Sir.” The implication took a moment to register. Drinian did a mammoth double-take. “Do you know…”

“Mirilana’s address is known to every mariner that ever put in at Redhaven. The present mistress is the third or fourth to borrow the name.” Ram leaned against the taffrail, a wistful smile pinching his neat mouth. “To the dismay of the ladies o’ Muil! Only the officers venture beyond Brenn, you see.”

“Ah.” 

“Remember that when you’re in command yourself: not good for discipline for the men to see the Old Blighter stumbling out of a harlot’s hovel with his belt unbuckled.” 

“Aye, Sir.” Elisa herself had not left him quite so dazed, Drinian considered, as this strange companion in his composed Captain’s form. Ram chuckled.

“No sensible skipper condemns an honest man his vices, Drinian,” he said kindly. “There are weak-headed sots that can’t stomach their tots but hoard ‘em for a night’s oblivion, and I’ve seen stout fellows ruined by their fondness for the doxies. They’re the men that should be watched! I fancy you’ve a strong enough head to _direct_ your pleasures.”

“Thank you – I think.” He rubbed his damp brow, omitting the customary Sir in his confusion. “Aunt did insist I have a _courtly_ education.”

“Ah, but sense and education are different things, else why would Anvard be filled with simpering fools with naught better to do than risk their estates on the turn of a card?” His mobile features twisted into a grimace Ram glanced up at his neighbour, his quick interest caught by the slight motion of teeth worrying at a bruised bottom lip. “Something troubling you?”

“Do you think she’s rolling more than usual, Sir?” He was accustomed to the vibration of the deck through his stout boots; knew the subtle sway of the waves creaming beneath the galleon’s keel. “There’s barely a breeze, and yet…”

Ram froze with his nose lifted, like a terrier sniffing the rabbit’s scent. “Likely as not you’re right, young man. There’s a torrent on our tail: that’s the deep ocean swelling off the starboard quarter. Topasio! Send a second hand to the tiller! Sailmen aloft! Hurry now Drinian, an officer should never trail a common tar to the mainyard!”

*

Day after endless freezing day they were lashed by soaring waves, their ears assaulted by the incessant scream of a tormenting wind. One moment teetering on the crest of a towering swell, peering into broiling slate depths, the next plunging down, spray drenching the ropes and rendering the decks, even in their rare level moments, traitorously slippery, _Tiger_ creaked and groaned against the elements’ unremitting ferocity. Sleep-deprived and numb with cold, Drinian staggered from emergency to crisis in semi-darkness, oblivious to the grumble of his empty stomach so long as there was perilous occupation to attend.

Three men lost their footing and fell hard enough to break bones. Darin was saved from drowning only by his ankle getting caught in the grappling chain amidships long enough for Topasio and Wat to reach overboard and drag him to safety. Worst of all, the tapering bowsprit stretching forward above the snarling prow figure was smashed clean away at the base, caught by the full force of a surging wave. “No chance of ‘oldin’ ‘er, Cap’n!” Marix bawled, lashed to the wheel with his feet more often in the air than on deck. 

“I thought we gave up on keeping course yesterday!” Clawing his way across the stern rail, Ram’s grin gleamed from deep within the folds of his hood. “Drinian! Wat! Man the pump, if you please. I’ll give you a Coronet to a Galmian Ducal we’re through the worst of it now.”

“Aye Sir!” Whether he believed it or not hardly mattered, Drinian decided. The Old Man was confident, and knowing it stirred fresh vigour in his leaden limbs. Holding each other up against the gale the two friends slipped and slid to the hatch and down, splashing through ankle-deep bilge water to the circular pump in the ship’s bowel. “Take him up on the wager, Wat?”

“That old fox?” Setting his chest to the other bar, Wat snorted at the very thought. “May not control the flamin’ weather, but ‘e reads it like ‘e does! Keep time with a shanty?”

“Aye.” Though exertion shredded his fine baritone in a minute, Drinian stomped around the pump’s turn steadily to the tempo of _Back to Barwell Bay_ , barely aware of the passage of time. When at the end of the hour two more men tumbled down to relieve them, he was astonished to find his fingers flexing properly and his brain cleared of half its weary fog. “Storm’s still raging, mind,” he groused, head tipped back to let the ocean spray mingle with perspiration’s sheen across his forehead. “Should have taken that wager, Captain!”

“Optimism is a wonderful failing for a sailor.” Ram had slept less than any of them, yet looked lively as a spring lamb. “And look! Nor-east three points, there’s a glimmer in the cloud I fancy _may_ be the sun breaking through. Get to your hammock, Drinian! You’ve been thirty hours on deck by my count.”

“Eight less than you Sir; but thank you.” His hand moved of its own volition to the salute. Before his aching head could srike its pillow, Drinian was sound asleep.

*

He woke to discover them safely anchored off Galamaia, aware before being fully awake that _Tiger_ bobbed serenely in a sheltered bay. His stomach rumbled angrily. His limbs throbbed a painful reminder of recent endeavour; and the stench of stale sweat hanging in still, stale air made him gag.

The Captain made no allowance for any man’s ailments, marching his youngest officer ashore to inspect the giant shipyard warehouses for good rope, stout chains and the seasoned timber necessary for repairs. “And no deceiving us with unwanted stocks, Master Airton,” he snapped at the stout and wheedling quartermaster who dogged their every step, wringing his sweaty palms at talk of credit and cost. “His Majesty’s Fleet settles its debts promptly, whatever the practise of your own dismal squadron!”

“Captain, Sir, there’s never been a more honest storemaster than me! Why, I wouldn’t dream o’ cheating a guest.” Scuffing his cork soles noisily, Airton almost managed to kick a straggling tail end of rope behind two leaking barrels. “We’ve rope of a dozen thicknesses, and iron chains brought from the smithy just yesterday – not a speck o’ rust on them, if you’d care to inspect for yourself, and very reasonably priced too – fifteen Ducals for ten yards”

“Fifteen? When the barge skipper we passed leaving paid a mere twelve?” Ram seemed to grow six inches in a dozen words: either that, Drinian acknowledged, compressing his lips into a contemptuous pout, or Master Airton had shrunk the same amount. “Mark this lesson, Drinian! Pirates may slit a captain’s throat for the contents of his purse, but they spare any pretence of being his friend while they’re stealing! My officer will check each link. Give every one a solid tug lad, and if there’s the smallest weakness…”

“I daresay there’s a metal merchant in town would take it from the Quartermaster for a small consideration, Sir.” Folding his arms, he smirked down on the elder men, fascinated by the dribble of sweat down Airton’s gargantuan brow. “And as for the rope… I trust there’s better in the offing than those tangled rats’ tails hung on the back wall?”

“Best whipcord, Sir, and very reasonable in price, too.” Ram’s foot began to tap, his metal boot toe clanging tinnily on the stone floor. “Gairton! Boy, fetch a coil of our best hemp for the young gentleman to inspect! In consideration of your circumstance, Captain – being damaged so far from home waters, and by such wicked weather as we’ve borne these last weeks – I _may_ be able to cut a bargain…”

“Save your wheedling for a greenhorn, Airton. You and I have done business before.” Though his words were steely, Drinian detected a glimmer of mirth in the Old Man’s brilliant eyes. “Twelve Ducals for the chain – _when_ my officer is satisfied of its quality – and six for a coil of narrow twine. You’ll remain, Drinian, and check every inch of the rope for signs o’ mouse-bite. I’ll send Marix and Wat with payment when you pass word all’s as it should be.”

“Aye, Captain.” He settled himself on a stout cask marked SALT BEEF 54 PIECES, giving an experimental rock. “Fancy your butcher’s a charlatan, Master Airton,” he called to the storeman’s retreating form. “If there’s forty pieces in here, I should be _very_ surprised!”

*

“Neatly done, Drin,” Marix bawled above the clatter of knives on bent pewter platters as the Captain reached the end of his tale the next night. “Bet the thievin’ old bast - blighter fair wet ‘isself!”

“I fancy his knees knocked a little,” said Ram mildly, crooking a tar-stained finger to the pretty blonde weaving her way between outdoor tables with one hand outstretched to swat away the tipsy gropes of the tavern’s customers. “Another tankard of ale, young lady, if you’ve time. When I offered to buy dinner, I’d forgotten what trenchermen my tars can be!”

“Should put yer ‘and in the purse more of’n then, Cap’n, if you’ll pardon the boldness, Sir.” Wat piped up, not a whit abashed to spend a temperate evening ashore sharing a charred haunch of beef and potatoes with his superiors. “’s not the finest restaurant on the island, neither!”

“Our meat’s good as aught you’ll find in the Duke’s own kitchen; and keep your mucky hands off my best apron you rogue – begging your pardon, Captain – young master.” She dipped a curtsy, lashes batting. “A girl in my place can’t be too careful with these lumberin’ great brutes.”

“Indeed, Ma’am, but what gives you the impression _I_ may be different?” Cocking his head to peer up into her aquamarine eyes as she leaned to clear their table, Drinian flashed his most innocent smile. Soft colour started up her neck, pooling in the dimples that formed in her cheeks.

“Why, you’ve the air of a gentleman, sir; and you’ve kept your hands away no matter where your eyes might stray.” Deftly she swiped the palm Wat was directing toward her bottom. “I’ll order more ale, Captain, but have my master bring it from the kitchen. A lady can only defend her honour so often in an evening.”

“Allow me.” With a smirk to his neighbour Drinian sprang up to open the tavern door. “Have a _lady_ jeopardise her honour for a jug of ale! Shame on you, Wat!” 

“’Ave to watch that one, Cap’n,” the big sailor hollered over the jeers of their companions. “’S always the smooth ‘uns what charm their doxies into livin’ in the ‘old, you mark my words!”

“Jealous of a boy for his manner with the wenches, Wat?” Chuckling, Ram rubbed his swollen stomach, picking a last blackened scrap from dinner’s carcass as his booted feet dangled in the gutter. “What’s the hue and cry in the square? Drinian, you’re the tallest of us: what can you see?”

“No pursuit, Sir.” Ale sloshed from the filled jug over his hand, and Wat yelped, seizing the precious liquid in a possessive embrace. 

“Don’t know the value o’ good liquor, that lad,” he mewed, licking a drop from the spout. Ram ignored him.

“Archenlandish officer!” Above the general hullabaloo the runner’s gravelled shout barely registered. “Archenlandish officer, I say! Cap’n Ram – where’s Cap’n Ram?”

“Here!” The name’s owner was still goggling, like the scruffy children skipping in the frantic sailor’s wake, at his shredded tunic and mud-streaked hose. With scant regard for rank, Drinian seized Ram’s wiry arm and heaved him to his feet. “Fancy the fellow’s looking for you, Captain,” he bawled. 

The tumult died away. Wat dropped his trophy with a clang. “What ship?”

“ _Anvard_ , Sir.” On his sleeve the shuddering intruder wore the gold button of a junior officer. “Sent by Cap’n Kolin to call you back to port. It’s war, Sir!"

“What is?” The word caused a seismic shudder through the crowd. Only Ram appeared unaffected. 

“The Terebinthians, Sir.” The smallest tug was enough to bring the exhausted man sprawling onto Drinian’s stool, allowing the Archenlanders to crowd around. “Them bloody brigands they shelter, anyrate! Fell on the King’s own ship at the edge of our waters, slaughtered Cap’n Par and ‘alf the crew and stole the King’s own gold an’ silver dinner dishes, ‘fore leavin’ the _Golden Mist_ to drift onto a sandbar.”

Icy spiders crawled from his belly. Drinian bit deep into his bottom lip, tasting the copper tang of swirling blood. The messenger’s voice thrummed in his ear, but the words were nonsense. War. The King’s own galleon wrecked on the shore. 

_War._


	39. Thirty-Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Archenland is on a war footing. For the Tiger's Narnian officer, the action is going to be non-stop. Isn't it?

Along the river’s length makeshift defences had been thrown up: earth ramparts to shield isolated hamlets; chains cast across the cays and bays where an enemy vessel might put in for wood and water. At the mouth, protecting the approaches to Barwell, giant siege towers had been raised, catapults fixed at their summits. “Hope the lookouts have the wit to know a friendly galleon from a pirate brig,” Drinian muttered, shading his narrowed eyes for a better view. “And water, not strong spirits, to drink! A boulder fired from that could easily smash the keel.”

“Take the fools a month to aim straight, most likely.” Topasio had to shout over the whirr of the grindstone, spinning a sharp edge to every blade on board. “Get below and shift the hammocks aft, lads! We’re to carry twenty soldiers an’ all the clutter the retchin’ scum’ll need to the fore. Masthead lookout! Them beggars still in our wake?”

“Dropped back, Sir!” Dorix’s clipped diction made him an ideal masthead scout: which was a relief to Drinian, who might otherwise have been stationed permanently aloft himself. 

“Surely they’ll not venture close in without landing spies first,” he asked, blowing a stray jet curl back from his furrowed brow. “Mate! Signal from the starboard tower!”

“Man the ‘alyards, you scurvy slackers, raise our identifyin’ flag and be smart about it!” Ugly colour mottled Topasio’s thick neck and spurted up through his bristling beard. “Should’ve been standin’ ready wi’ that! Remember for next time, Drin.”

“Aye, Sir.” The accusation was unfair since he was not the senior officer on deck, and Drinian bit hard into his tongue, using the trivial pain to divert his frustration. _There are lessons in everything, Master Drinian_ , his tutors had squealed. In this, perhaps, was a study of how a good officer ought not to abuse his rank.

His fit of pique was short-lived, a bellowed summons carrying him urgently away to take soundings as _Tiger_ tacked through the crowded Barwell Roads to her berth beside the town armoury. “Never seen the place so busy,” Darin barked, swinging from the entryport ready to toss out their mooring ropes. “Coo! Look at the prancin’ ninnies queuin’ up for their new breastplates and plumed ‘elmets, Drin! Unless we’re set to storm Port Terebinthia, this’ll be a shipboard war. Ain’t gettin’ me into no steel swimmin’ suit!”

“We have breastplates and pikes enough for the crew, Darin.” Ram swept down the gangway in full uniform, the familiar practical wool and leather of his preferred seaborne attire packed away. “Drinian, take a party into town. We need buckets, mops and wooden platters for our passengers’ use. Yes, _buckets_ , lad! None of ‘em will have ridden a raft down a quiet river before: they’ll be spewing their guts before we’re even beyond the Roads! Marix, you’ll march them down from the muster point. No man that’s not properly armed remember, and no squealing silly wench with her hair cut off trying to take a place beside her bedfellow! I’ll see to provisions once I have orders from my Lord Admiral. Topasio, the ship is yours.”

“Aye, Sir.” Topasio sounded relieved. Scanning the confusion of shoving, shouting humanity on the quay, Drinian didn’t blame him in the least.

*

The fields beyond Barwell had been given over to military camps and the small town felt crammed with strangers, all treading on a man’s toes and stumbling down the wrong side-streets, shouting in a dozen dialects for advice and assistance. It took an hour to walk from quay to joiner’s shop, and Drinian’s party arrived bruised and shaken from their jostling. “Folks are in a fair panic, thinkin’ the pirates is about to swim up the river,” the cheerful hunchback informed them, brandishing his chisel like a rapier. “Lord Admiral’s wife’s gone runnin’ off to Anvard for _protection_ they say, which should put Milord Gurin in a happier temper! You’ll be after a dozen large buckets ‘n’ baskets, masters? Give me your ship’s name and I’ll paint it on the sides. You, boys! Them planks is my stock and trade, not weapons for a pair o’ witless infants playin’ soldiers! Little brats think they’re fit for battle, and them not more than eight years old!”

“I should have done the same at their age.” He had, frequently, and remembering brought a wry smile to Drinian’s dry lips as he helped retrieve the abused timbers from two sheepish young thieves. “War seems much more of an adventure when one’s too young to fight it! No, we’ll wait for our purchases, thank you. Crain, push through the crowd around the pie seller cawing on the corner – my treat.”

“Won’t say no, Drin.” Deftly snatching the gold Five Coronet coin Drinian flipped from his pocket the sailor barrelled away on his mission, returning with venison pasties, ham and cheese pies and piping hot sausages for everyone. “Be venturin’ ashore with you more often, not that we’re likely to be much in port for a while.”

“Not so sure o’ that, young feller.” Sawdust spraying from his busy chisel, their host barely spluttered the words. “If they’ve their wits about ‘em, the devils’ll patrol off the river mouth. You’ll not get your big ships out past them so easily, you mark my words!”

*

Crain had dismissed the old man’s words, but three months later, with the fleet stuck fast in port and the communities on the river mouth in terror of the next Terebinthian raid, Drinian reflected on them gloomily as he hunkered down in _Tiger’s_ flimsy gig, a lantern shielded between his hands.

A dozen pirate vessels, so the spies said, lurked between the river estuary and the archipelago of rocky islets shielding it from open sea. Three men pulled on oars wrapped with canvas to muffle their splash; black cloaks covered every head. "Pathin' the watch towerth now," Wat muttered, deliberately lisping every _S_ to avoid any whistle of air through the large empty spaces between his remaining teeth. "Can you thee 'em, Drin?"

"Aye. Hold her!" A pair of squat brigs tacked clear of the entrance, but despite his telescope Drinian could detect no small boats closer in. Using the folds of his cloak as a shield, he unrolled Ram's best chart and crouched over the lantern with a finger tracing the channel of deeper water leading into the archipelago's heart. "Chancy, but I think it's possible," he breathed. "Ease us to the larboard bank; we need to watch 'em until dawn."

“Lucky uth!”

He could hardly argue as the night wore on and the fingers curled around his telescope’s base numbed with bone-deep cold. He blew on them; pried them off one by one, and transferred the glass to his other hand, tucking the frozen one inside his cloak for to thaw. Lulled by the chirrup of nocturnal creatures flitting through the reeds, his eyelids began to droop, lassitude combined with cold to deaden every nerve ending. 

Something squawked. Drinian jerked upright, making the gig rock and his drowsy colleagues whimper. “Damn!”

“No thign o’ the blighterth.” Wat at least was doing his duty, wide-eyed and alert while his superior snoozed. Drinian bit his lip, too cross with himself and too irritated with the sailor’s sublime immunity to tiredness to risk a word. “Don’t theem to thend out patrolth.”

“As the Captain thought.” Cautious, he loosened the tight folds of the woollen mantle that swathed him. A touch of cold would keep him awake, and daybreak could not be too far away. “First sign o’ the sky lightening…”

“Aye, Thir.” The man was deliberately using as many _S_ sounds as he could Drinian realised, helpless to stop a grin. Well, if it kept his mind active and his eye sharp peering through the gloom toward the blockading ships, so much the better for them all!

*

Their orders had been to go ashore at Barwell and report to the Lord Admiral’s house, where Ram and his fellow captains awaited. Simple enough, Drinian had assumed, until the gig squeezed between brigs at the quay and he discovered a town in uproar.

Carts and packing cases stood outside every third door and women ran shrieking through the streets in their nightgowns, winning a flick of ears from the line of patient mules idly swishing their tales while panniers were secured to their backs. Men shouted at each other, shoving and jostling, one dragging his donkey forward to barge another’s out of the way. “Wha’s goin’ on, d’you reckon?” Wat rumbled, evading the charge of a terrified child with a nimbleness unexpected in such a big man. “Oi, you there! Wha’s the confusion, masters?”

“You damned sailors should know! You’re the drunken whoresons let the pirates raze Lune’s Forge to the ground two nights ago!” Staggering under the weight of his pack, Raxin the town peddler veered deliberately between the two astonished seamen, sending both sprawling. “Aye, you don’t even know! Half a dozen men slain, the prettiest women carried off for the slave markets and a village left ablaze, and where was our blessed fleet? Cowerin’ at bloomin’ anchor, that’s where!”

“What of the soldiers His Majesty ordered to patrol?” The horrible cold of midnight in the reed beds gripped him again. Drinian flexed his fingers, willing himself to stay calm and hear the angry man out. Raxin spat extravagantly.

“Dead drunk under tables, most likely, but the plain fact’s this, lad: war wi’ Terebinthia’s a seaborne war, and out pettifoggin’ fleet can’t get out o’ Barwell Roads! Now half the town’s in confusion, folk fleein’ for the countryside, and what’s a chap to do that depends on their custom for his livin’ eh? Lived in Barwell all my life, now I’m forced to run because you idle fellows can’t defend us against a flotilla o’ cut-throats callin’ themselves the _Royal Fleet_ of a pestilential damned island! I assume you’re too ashamed of your damned uniform to wear it in the streets now?”

“We never wear uniform when there’s action in the offing, Raxin.” Drinian slid a hand back to grasp Wat’s wrist, aware his friend’s temper would not stand another insult. “And if the people of Barwell are thinking to fly inland, they’re greater fools than I knew! With chains across the anchorage and siege towers defending the approaches, a leaking barrel couldn’t reach harbour unseen, still less a band of pirates! The town constables should be taking these infernal panic-mongers in hand – aye, and into charge if they block the streets with their belongings! Hurry, Wat, the Lord Admiral’s waiting on our report.”

“’s your report, an’ Master Gurin were one o’ the first to run fer Anvard, as you well know.” Wat made sure to give the irate peddler a shove in passing. Drinian grimaced.

“Luckily, for the Captain’s sake! A man with so soggy a handshake’s never going to make a General, on land or sea – my uncle’s opinion. Besides, Raxin’s the biggest gossip this side o’ the Narnian border, and it ought to be bruited about that action’s imminent: raise spirits _and_ spare us from the assaults o’ the populace.”

“Let ‘em try!” Though he kept a firm grip on his cutlass Drinian was relieved to see his companion showing no inclination to drag it free of its scabbard, however the frightened residents elbowed them. “Liverish, whimperin’ ‘alfwits! All we need’s a cloudy night to slip out an’ catch the blackguards from behind. War’ll be over in a month, I’d wager me last Coronet on it.”

“I know how successful your wagers tend to be, Wat.” With a roll of the eyes, Drinian rapped on the doors of the Admiral’s unimpressive residence, eager to be out of the crush of needless fright. “Best keep what’s left of your pay in your pocket! Captain! We have our report, Sir.”


	40. Thirty-Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The phoney war is about to get very real...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More hand-to-hand combat approaches. It's not particluarly graphic, but it's war.

Too many of Ram’s fellow officers had been determined to merit the unflattering opinions of the peddler, not daring to trust their ships to a perilous night voyage through narrow channels between viciously serrated islets even for the chance of surprising the enemy. Peering forward from his post, deafened by the rhythmic breathing of Dorix stationed as an auxiliary lookout on the other side of the prow, Drinian hardly could blame them.

Pitch black water hissed beneath the keel, churning up a creamy bow wave he was sure any alert pirate must detect. Every lantern, even that beside the wheel, had been doused, and every man wore dark clothing, bending double as he moved lest his outline break against the sky. Past the siege towers at the harbour mouth _Tiger_ crawled under minimal canvas, sailing as close as possible to the larboard bank. “See ‘em, Drin?”

“Aye. No boats out, mind.” 

The single brig of Terebinthia’s fleet on guard had been anchored fore and aft clear of the northernmost hunk of uninhabited rock, and for that landmark Captain Ram was steering with a steady hand, his course through the archipelago charted and his officers sure of their tasks.

At least, Drinian amended, they had been in bright sunlight when first the Captain had laid out his audacious plan. What seemed straightforward after a good luncheon was an entirely different matter hours after supper, when one’s stomach rumbled and even one’s deliberately shallow breathing sounded loud as a thunderclap. He slid a fingertip along the knotted line coiled at his feet. He knew how to take a sounding; had done it before his fourth birthday aboard Papa’s little sailing smack. The mere presence of a pirate ship, lamplight pulsing across deck to blur her shape, did not change that.

“Damn, those rocks are close!” Dorix growled the thought of every man for’ard, matching Drinian’s instinctive flinch as the black mass of the first island reared above the larboard rail. “Protects us from their lookouts, I suppose.”

“Rather take my chances with a pirate than a sharp rock. And keep your voice down!”

Instantly he regretted the warning. Dorix fell silent, and the clammy cold of fear was released to fold around him once more.

At least as the channel widened and _Tiger_ heeled hard to skirt another sheer cliff face he was kept occupied, taking soundings and hissing a finding every minute to be conveyed the length of the ship. The clawing in his gut began to ease. A small, dark blot among the black stains made by the islands, the galleon would surely be impossible for even the keenest watchman to identify, and beyond the archipelago lay open water where unsuspecting enemy craft could be ambushed at will.

“They’re a long way from a friendly port,” Ram had reminded his fellow captains. “With Galma closing its harbours under provision of our treaty, and two hundred leagues of ocean betwixt Barwell and Terebinthia. Attack their supply ships! That’s the way to win this manner o’ war.”

The King’s proclamation, Drinian recalled, had used almost identical language. He flipped out his line for the hundredth time, forcing himself to ignore the dull throb of protest in his arm. “Aslan’s Mane!” he breathed. “If every man had the stomach o’ Ram and Nain, this war would be won in a week!”

*

By daylight they were clear, the sail unfurled and every man loudly protesting he hadn’t been afraid at all. Fluffy clouds scudded across a turquoise sky, and gentle waves kissed _Tiger’s_ steep sides. Idling on the main deck with his tanned face lifted to the caress of the breeze, Drinian was as content as if he were on a courtly pleasure cruise. It was impossible to imagine there might be hostile vessels on the edge of such a perfect scene, and remaining on the high alert the Captain demanded felt like an affront. He could not do it.

Nor, as the days dripped by, could anyone else. Topasio lolled on watch; Marix was heard expelling the hacking caw he described as _singing_. The weather held fair and they might have been the only ship at sea.

They put in at Galamaia for fresh water; cruised the island’s south coast before tacking back westward. They even danced on deck under extravagant pink and gold sunsets. He had quite forgotten they were at war by the time, midway through the second week, Sarin howled down from the fighting top. 

“Sail in sight, four points nor-east! Terebinthian by ‘er rig."

“All hands to battle stations! Archers, away aloft! Helmsman, bring us about.” Ram straightened from his slouch against the taffrail, visibly fighting the urge to dash aloft with his telescope. “Masthead! Schooner or brig?”

“Brig, Sir! Fat ugly little slug of a thing, too!”

Drinian smothered a snort under Ram’s reproachful frown. “Hysteria’s no help in combat, lad,” the Captain growled. “Archers! Men-at-arms! We’ll carry her by boarding, they’ll not expect a galleon hereabout!”

For the hundredth time, Drinian wished Ram would stop making the murderously difficult sound easy. His belly flexed with tension as the two vessels heeled onto a collision course, the sibilant scrape of blade against scabbard slicing through the dull thunder of blood pounding through his brain. 

He _hated_ fighting.

*

The grim sensation did not fade, though the shabby little _Crossed Cudgel_ was the first of a flow of Terebinthians to fall into _Tiger’s_ claws. In her wake came the schooner _Arok_ (named, so Ram remarked as she burned, for one of Calormen’s most notorious pirates); then _Mistress Nan_ and _Bloody Shore_ , among others whose names were recorded in the ship’s log then forgotten by most of the crew. “A harlot an’ a battle scene,” Crain grunted as they set fires running up tinder-dry rigging on their most recent catch, the hiss and crackle of racing flames sure to carry for leagues over open sea. Drinian glanced up, awed by the sight as he leapt back from a pile of rags he had set blazing on deck. “Jus’ what you’d expect o’ them scoundrels! That’ll do, Drin! Let’s get back before she catches properly.”

“Hardly fair, destroying the ship. She’s not responsible for her crew.” The few survivors were chained in a wooden box on _Tiger’s_ fo’c’sle, a snarling, malevolent cargo to carry to the nearest friendly port. Pushing him ahead to the side rail and the safety of their waiting boat, Crain nodded.

“Aye the lady’s not to blame, but she carries the black-biled whoresons to their business. Coo! Mainmast’ll be down in no time, see ‘ow it’s caught! Bet they’ve not changed that rig in years!”

He stood on deck watching the little brig burn until dusk, banking down to a sullen orange glow against the grey of sea and sky. He could block his ears easily to the howls of abuse from their prisoners: caged and chained, they were objects of scorn where there had been fear during hand-to-hand warfare. He would be screaming too, Drinian considered, if it were his ship reducing to a fine film of black ash skimming the top of the waves. 

“How much longer do we stay out, Captain?” he asked, conscious of a stern presence at his shoulder, though the approach had been quite soundless. “The cage is full; we’ve been two full months at sea. Word of us must have reached the blockade ships now!”

“I hope so.” Ram too was staring at the dying ship with something akin to compassion in his tired eyes. “We need to draw ‘em off our shores, Drinian: bring our bulk and men to bear in open sea. And as for the wild dogs in our custody, spare no pity for them! They’re prisoners of war by dint o’ the Terebinthian flag, to be housed and set free when a treaty’s signed. Under their own bloody banners we should have exercised our right as honest men to hang every mother’s son by now!”

“Aye, Sir.” The gong’s clang announced the breaching of the nightly tot, and unusually Drinian found himself scurrying below to join his friends. Something about the sight of the burning ship unnerved him; and though he had been helpless to turn away, a weight lifted from his shoulders in finding legitimate reason to leave deck. Papa had often told him fire, not a pirate fleet, was the sailor’s greatest enemy.

He doubted the snivelling citizens of Barwell would agree, but the Lord Tirian’s wisdom would always be good enough for his son.

*

Three days later the first sail was sighted from the west: the schooner _Bloodsword_ , all sail set, surging straight toward them. “Our activities have been noticed, gentlemen,” Ram announced, rubbing his leathery palms. “Grapplers, stand by! This one won’t shirk a fight, I think!”

Instantly the crew moved into an established routine: Wat and Darin, being the strongest aboard, raced to swing the heavy grappling chains; pikes, swords and cudgels were snatched from their racks; and everyone, seaman and solider, save the one at the wheel gathered at the galleon’s waist. Drinian sucked in a deep breath, gripped his sword’s enamelled hilt and bent his knees, ready for the brutal shock of hulls grinding together, knowing the speed with which two ships came together always caught him unawares. His teeth ground, and then the impact came.

“Tiger! Tiger! Tiger!” The rhythmic chant accompanied their charge into a wall of sharpened steel and blasphemy. Drinian jabbed forward with the point of his sword, quick and controlled in drawing back to launch a firmer blow to match Dorix’s on his left. He barely heard the other man’s exultant whoop as their victim crumpled at their feet.

There were more of them than he expected. Men streamed through open hatches, all bulging muscles and straggling hair, to throw themselves into the place of fallen comrades. Curving billhooks and rust-marked pikes threshed, and Drinian dipped his too-lofty head, plunging through the steel forest in Marix’s wake with sword jabbing left and right. His breath came fast; sweat stood cold on his creased brow. _Curse the filthy curs, how many more?_

 _Bloodsword_ soon lived up to her name, her timbers tunring slippery and purpled with spilled gore, but with every minute that passed fewer alien voices croaked her name above the incessant metallic clank of battle. From the corner of his eye Drinian spied a ferociously spiked implement swinging down toward his exposed forearm, and with a yelp he hurled himself sideways, thrusting his blade upward. It carved his assailant’s throat an instant before the spear’s point sliced his sleeve.

He was conscious of a faint sting, but had no time to ponder as a whey-faced fellow with lank mousy hair dripping into his eyes charged straight for him, features contorted with otherworldly fury. Drinian rocked back onto his heels, measured the distance, and lunged for the gullet. Soft, yielding flesh engulfed the straight sword’s length and the pirate fell with mouth still gaping at his feet.

“Push ‘em aft, men!” Ram’s precise accent was the first he had identified clearly since boarding. Instinctively Drinian fought his way toward it, swatting the ribbon of white linen that fluttered from his sleeve. His fingers came away sticky, but the meaning failed to strike home. Gulping for breath, he reached the Captain’s shoulder, joining the familiar chant with a rasping voice.

“Tiger! Tiger! Tiger!”

Something brushed his shoulder, and a lusty cheer went up. “Her banner’s down!” Marix bawled, grinding the blue and silver pennant with his heel. “She’s ours, Cap’n!”

“Tigers, to me!” Ram had to repeat his order four times before the last man stopped fighting, silence crashing down over a scene of blood-spattered horror. Fifty bodies sprawled: some moving feebly; most petrified where they had fallen. Somebody whimpered.

“Shurrup!” Wat growled, prodding the offender with his cutlass. “Only two prisoners ‘ere, Cap’n; reckon the rest’ve took their chances wi’ the sharks.”

“The poor beasts will be drunk for a week.” Ram dug the point of his giant two-handed sword into deck, leaning on the hilt as casually as a countryman on his boundary fence. “Topasio, set her ablaze. Marix, gather our wounded. Drinian, go with them. That gash may not be deep, but it’ll scar unless properly tended.”

“Captain?” Puzzled, he followed the older man’s glance down the length of his left arm. “Oh!”

Blood oozed from a straight slash down the soft flesh of his inner forearm. “Only felt like a scratch,” he mused, giving the limb an experimental flex. “Damn!”

“Go with Sarin’s party and have it bound.” Ram cocked his silvery head. “The villain who caught you…”

“Lying on deck with a bloody necklace, Sir.”

“Good lad.” Ram clapped him on the back before turning his attention to the task at hand. “Mate, set the fires, then bring every man aboard. We turn for home tonight, my lads, and well have you earned the freedom o’ Barwell when we get there!”

*

He slept poorly that night, disturbed as much by the pungent aroma of goose fat and mixed herbs as the stinging sensation down his carefully bandaged arm. “If it’s stingin’, Drin, it’s healin’,” Sarin had told him cheerfully before shooing him away and smearing the bloody limb of his next victim. The whole ship stank of poultices, and the Mate was not alone in loathing it.

Daybreak brought an excited hail from the masthead. “Sail in sight west-sou’west! Looks like one of ours, Cap’n!”

People stopped as if struck by one of the White Witch’s spells from Caspian’s old nursery tales. Disbelief bubbled with hope, a heady mix that made Drinian quite forget the swarm of angry bees inside his bandages. “How can that be?”

“Deck there! Two sail – no, three! Looks like the _Diadem_ , Cap’n; an’ the schooner _King Lune_ ; aye, an’ that’s the old _Anvard_! They’re all out, Sir!”

Exultation swept through Drinian and across the ship. Men cheered and capered, slapping each other on the back and spinning their neighbours around. “Drinian, run up our identification!” Ram shouted, quelling the chaos with a steely ship-wide stare. “Having broken the enemy, I’d not care to be menaced by my own side! Shipshape and lively there, lads! Signal the lead ship the instant she acknowledges us. They’ve news of home, and I’ll wager a full month’s pay on it being happy!”


	41. Forty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They're the heroes of the kingdom, the men who broke the blockade. This fame brings its own challenges to the Tiger's crew back at Barwell...

Though their fellows had declared _Tiger’s_ men the heroes of the realm, Drinian was still amazed to find the whole wharf teeming with cheering, singing people on their tortuous crawl to their mooring. While Wat and Dorix leaned out over the landward side, he hung bashfully back, shyly waving where his companions hallooed. “What did we do but our duty?” he wondered.

“Our duty, while others shirked or ran?” Dorix dragged him forward to the rail, laughing at his protests. “You’ve the handsomest face of us all Drin, don’t be hiding it behind great ugly brutes like Wat and Crain! Hi! There’s raddled Nin and her troupe of harlots! Hoping for a good trade once we’ve the leisure the Old Man promised, I dare say!”

“Gurin’s there too; and his lady.” He knew the broad grin was malicious, but Drinian didn’t care. “Her ladyship’s being jostled, and look! Nin’s parading her wares close as she can to him!”

“If she don’t scare ‘im off the ‘arbour wall, we’re stuck wi’ the lily-livered old dullard,” Wat growled, though his attention was so fixed on the residents of Nin’s establishment Drinian doubted he had even spotted the Admiral. “And ‘ark to that! They’ve written a ballad about us. Mate o’ the _Diadem_ fair choked ‘isself tellin’ Topasio about it!” 

Before anyone could stick finger to ear, he broke out in a ragged bray.

_“When our Tiger, she led the way,_  
_O, the blackguards off Barwell did pray_ ,  
_In such fear of ‘er claws_ ,  
_They preferred a shark’s jaws_ ,  
_When old Tiger, she led the way!”_

“Sounds like one of Horstin’s rhymes,” Drinian snorted. “Look alert, Gurin’s coming aboard!” 

“Grab a bucket from below: that ninny’d be seasick crossin’ a flat pond!” Grinning, Topasio sauntered to join his superior at the entryport. “Permission to dismiss the hands, Cap’n?”

Ram restrained them as briefly as Gurin’s sonorous congratulations allowed, sending his company down the gangplank into a heaving, cheering melee that frightened Drinian twice as much as any piratical band. Shoulders hunched, he forced his way into the middle of a merry group of crewmates, trying not to flinch from the damp breath and flying hands of excited townsfolk. Snatches of the chorus Wat had sung clashed against each other amid the din, each one being cheered by the singers as they finished. Conscious of the glee of his friends Drinian tried to smile, ignoring the clammy discomfort that tightened in his guts. 

A girl around his age barged through, bestowing kisses left and right; her mother tossed flowers, shrilly chanting the galleon’s name. “Nice to be heroes instead o’ damned debauched rogues for a change!” Crain hollered.

“Is it?”

“Put yer ‘ead up and smile for the pretty lasses! Their fathers’ll be throwin’ rotten apples our way again soon enough.”

Against his will, Drinian guffawed. “Remind me never to take shore leave with you!” he exclaimed, oblivious to the heads his crisp accent turned. “I though Wat and Darin were the evil influences aboard!”

“Got to watch the quiet ones,” Dorix opined, passing a buxom brunette through their cluster, her puckered lips landing she cared not where. Handing her on toward Berix, whose loose lips hung parted in readiness, Drinian rolled his eyes.

“How would you know?” he demanded, snatching the most succulent from a rain of white rosebuds to tuck into his jerkin. “Find your own favour Dorix, you lazy wretch, it seems there are plenty to be shared! Dinner in town tonight?”

*

Dinner in town became a nightly treat, with good tables being found at a moment’s notice for _Tiger’s_ delighted men. “Shan’t hear o’ taking money from the gentlemen that broke the villains’ blockade!” cried the owner of the _Great Ram_ tavern on the south side of the market square, echoing the protest of his rival at the _Mariner’s Rest_ the night before. “What? Charge the saviours o’ the kingdom? ‘Tis an honour to have such heroes at our tables!”

“B’ain’t ‘eroes!” The gruff bark from a corner table stilled the tavern’s chatter. A petite waitress froze in her bend over the bar, wine still dribbling from the jug in her white-knuckled grip. “Cap’n’s a madman an’ the crew are rum-sodden sots, tha’s what our Old Man says!”

“Does ‘e, now?” Shaking off the restraining hand of Marix, Darin loomed up from his seat. “And what liverish poltroon that never set foot on a pirate deck would your cap’n be?”

“Cap’n Clune o’ the _Winding Arrow_.” The words were slurred, and the speaker swayed as he stood to meet Darin’s challenge. “A wise man that never risks ‘is ship for a fool’s errand.”

“Nor serves ‘is country in time o’ need.” The men of the _Winding Arrow_ – Drinian remembered her, bright as a pin and untarnished by barnacle or brine – rumbled ominously, but Darin was not the man to be deterred. Pushing the startled innkeeper aside he rounded the table with Crain at his back, hands clenched. “Ever bloodied yer sword, traitor? Or d’you leave the fightin’ to proper men?”

“Darin, enough.” Marix gulped his ale, no less aware than his neighbour of the crackling hostility lancing across the half-lit room. “The fool’s jealous we put to sea while he cowered in port. Sit down and eat.”

“’Fraid of a fight, Boson?” jeered a second man, kicking over his stool in his eagerness to join the fray. “Who’d ‘ve thought it, mates? The gallant _Tigers_ scared o’ shadows in a miserable bar!”

“The finest inn in Barwell!” squeaked the proprietor, skipping between the combatants circling in the middle of the room. “Gentlemen, I beseech you!”

“Pox-ridden cur,” Wat hurled his tankard away, rum splashing up the crumbling plaster wall like bandit blood on deck. “’fraid o’ the scum o’ the gutters? Wager your fists are as frail as your prissy cap’n’s fingernails! Ever been to sea yet, in peace or war?”

A chair arced across the room, smashing through the grimy window behind the _Tiger’s_ men. “Can’t even throw straight,” Darin growled. One of the _Winding Arrow_ men launched from his stool, head down as he barrelled into the big man’s legs. With a feral yell Darin went down, landing a meaty blow against his assailant’s temple.

Too fast even for Drinian’s sharp eye to catch, the verbal joust exploded into a noisy free-for-all. From the far side of the room the _Winding Arrow’s_ crewmen swarmed forth, mottled and cursing. Wat vaulted the table to wade in at Darin’s side, huge fists flying. Drinian ducked, alcoholic spray drenching his face from a flagon hurled through the melee. 

“ _Tigers_ , enough!” Marix launched himself forward, yanking vainly at Dorix’s brown jerkin. “For the love o’ the Lion! Drin, give a hand, lad!” 

“Aye, Sir!” He dodged the first blow, charging with back bent through the threshing confusion of arms and booted feet. “Ouf!”

“Which one ‘it you, Drin?” Crain bawled, breaking a chair leg over the skull of an opponent twice his considerable size. Drinian swung around, his knuckles crunching into a bristled jaw.

“That one,” he replied, giving his stinging hand a shake before plunging heedlessly to the defence of little Dorix, smallest of the _Tigers,_ who was holding his own while lustily abusing the two strangers (not seamen by their clothes he guessed, just local ruffians ready for any fight) who sought to take advantage of the topman’s small stature.

He might lack the bulk of most, but Drinian was quickly realising the advantage of agility in a scrum as he wove his way through a forest of thrashing fists and shattered table legs. Jabbing out with fist and foot, he found his way to Marix, making awed note of the man’s colourful vocabulary. “Boson!” he yelled. “Were we not supposed to be pulling the ruffians apart?”

“Incoming starboard!” He swayed back, instinct bringing his balled fist up hard into the midriff of his assailant.

“Boson!” he tried again, willing himself to concentrate on anything but the hot rush of fury surging through his blood. “We’re supposed to be stopping ‘em!”

Popping-eyed, Marix gawped at him as if he were a stranger. For an awful instant Drinian thought his friend might lunge for his throat. Then he blinked, and the rabid ferocity was gone.

“Reckon we are, an’ all,” he growled. Drinian sagged with relief, feeling the red haze that had enveloped him subside, clearing his vision in time for him to feel a faint tingle of shame start in his belly. He swung back to dodge an ill-aimed strike, yanking the offender roughly aside. “Enough o’ this, Crain!” he hollered, giving the man as vehement a shake as he dared. “Town constables!”

The shabby pair who had targeted Dorix vaulted through the broken front window and ran. With Marix at his side, Drinian waded through the writhing knot of blaspheming sailors, targeting the familiar and shoving away the unknown while the unfortunate innkeeper wrung his hands, dived to rescue such shattered pieces of furniture as emerged from the scrum and squealed for order, mercy or the Lion’s aid. 

He had to settle for that of the portly town officials, the shrill whistles clamped between their lips more effective than any officer’s yell in parting the blood-spattered scrimmage. Had they not been _the heroes of the Tiger_ , Drinian decided, his party might have ended the night in quarters more cramped even than their usual overcrowded, smelly space below deck.

*

It was as part of a chastened group that he faced the Captain across Ram’s battered little cabin desk next morning. At least he was not visibly scarred, he thought, with the bluish bruising left by his first opponent’s knuckles safely covered by jerkin and shirt. Marix’s lip was swollen; Darin and Crain sported mirror-image black eyes; Dorix nursed his battered right hand; while the gap in Wat’s grin would be doubled in size next time he chose to show it.

“I suppose,” the Old Man drawled, hands loosely linked on his opened journal, “you have some explanation for the uproar you have caused? Marix?”

“’s not the Boson’s fault, Cap’n.” Darin’s bloodshot eyes flickered: even he was nervous of the Captain’s sternly controlled anger, and Drinian felt better for realising that. “Him an’ Drin tried to break up the brawlin’ Sir. ‘Twas me what started it, gettin’ riled by a scurvy washerwoman’s brat what abused our ship.”

“We was in drink, Cap’n,” Wat added, as if the realisation had only now struck him. “And so was they, likely as not! No excuse, mind.” 

“Indeed it is not: though I’m glad to hear that my officers made _some_ attempt to quell the riot.”

“Until an insolent cur caught me, Sir.” Confession was contagious Drinian mused, forcing himself to meet the Captain’s chilly stare. Crain loosed a worried guffaw that rebounded off the bulkheads.

“Give the miserable dog a fair crack ’e did, Cap’n, afore wadin’ in to give little Dorix a hand. Beg pardon, Sir.”

“One o’ their men abused you and the crew, Sir.” Marix bit into his damaged lip. “The fellows wouldn’t stand by and hear it, and when Drinian and I jumped in to pull ‘em apart…”

“You took a stray blow and the haze of battle descended. I see.” Ram flattened his palms, absently stroking the worn desktop. “The town authorities demand punishment of the culprits; Captain Clune and myself have undertaken to prevent any further _unseemly incidents_ between our crews. Marix - Drinian. What ever the provocation, officers of the Fleet cannot brawl like common tars. You’ll stand watches about for the next five days. The rest of you – the loss of your tot’s a sterner punishment than the lash to such reprobates, and that you will endure. No shore leave until His Majesty’s visit; extra duties; and no rum. If that fails to make upright citizens of you, I’ll resign my damned commission! Dismissed.”

“Aye, Captain.” Hanging their heads, the offenders trudged in line through the door, pulled up short by his teasing adieu.

“Your loyalty to ship and company’s commendable but in the Lion’s name, insist on _paying_ for your supper next time!”


	42. Forty-One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With rewards to be handed out to the Tiger's men, Drinian's two worlds collide. It's an uncomfortable experience for several people present.

Wounds almost healed, they took their place among the general company to cheer the King’s small party through Market Square and down to the Admiral’s residence, falling into pairs at the procession’s tail. Uniforms neatly pressed, hair trimmed or tied back and their part in a regular affray forgotten, Drinian and Wat whispered together as they walked, thrilled to feel solid earth beneath their feet once more. People threw flower petals; the sun shone with unseasonable heat; and a pace behind their father, Prince Corin and Princess Anelia managed to wave graciously without public bickering. Though Nain was greyer in hair and face, strain and fatigue in every line of him, the impeccable behaviour of his progeny must, Drinian hoped, give the harassed monarch some small relief.

In the Admiral’s courtyard Gurin and his pinched, prune-faced wife awaited at a table laden with red velvet purses, mute while the denizens of court and town took their places on neat rows of low stools. Straightening the coronet which had slipped sideways during his ride, Nain positioned himself before the table, mustering a benign smile in answer to the assembly’s cheers.

“Captain Ram!” he exclaimed, throwing out both hands in a dramatic flourish Drinian at least thought jarringly uncharacteristic. “Step forward!”

Like a giant wave the ship’s company seemed to heave and part, tossing up the little figure of the Captain like a pebble on the shore. Very solemnly, Ram paced between the rows of spectators to kneel before the King.

Arrayed in regal turquoise and gold, Prince Corin stepped from his father’s shadow, holding flat on his open palms a gilded broadsword. The King plucked it by the hilt, unable to prevent a faint softening (of pride or relief, Drinian was uncertain which) at the smoothness with which the heir accomplished his task. 

Nobody moved. With an exaggerated sweeping motion, Nain brought the weapon up high, swooping down to feather the Captain’s shoulders. “Arise, Sir Ram of Lion’s Crest, Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Lily! Corin – the ribbon?”

“Oops!” Sheepishly grinning, Corin loped forward to thrust a blood-red silver-edged ribbon the length of a man’s little finger into his father’s outstretched palm, his sister gliding from her position between their hosts with a gilded pin to hold it in place on Ram's tunic. “Thought I was doing so well,” he mouthed toward the onlookers.

Wat sniggered. Drinian toed him smartly in the ankle. “Some compassion for the King!” he muttered.

“Aye, reckon ‘e needs it.” Berix leaned over his shoulder. Drinian shifted, giving the excited countryman a better view of his sovereign. “Looks older than ‘e does on the coins!”

“Older than the last time I saw him.” Despite the first panic, six months of war had caused little suffering to the general populace to an outsider’s eye. Food remained plentiful; assaults on the land had been shocking but rare; and the ill-disciplined rabble currently known as Terebinthia’s Royal Fleet stood little chance against any professional ship’s company it encountered. The merchants might grumble at the curtailment of trade with Galma, but the strains of conflict could hardly explain the ashy tinge to His Majesty’s cheek.

“Been sickness at Court, my sister wrote,” Dorix whispered. “Caught His Majesty amidships, and he’s been eating less well than before. Must be seen to set the example, apparently.”

“A good maxim, but hardly needful.” Ram had risen to his full limited height for the short mantle of the Order of the Royal Lily to be draped across his shoulders and fastened by the King’s trembling hand. “The Galmians might be sober without our exports o’ wine, but this war’s starving nobody! What’s next?”

“We’re to fetch our bounty.” Marix’s sunken eyes gleamed, drawn repeatedly to the jangling bags on the central table. “Two b’ two to receive payment from the King’s own ‘and! Stand smart, me lads!”

To cheers no less resounding than Sir Ram had received, they marched at the double to receive their bags of coin, passed from royal children to monarch, and from King to reverent subjects. Drinian had never seen his rowdy associates so impeccably behaved.

Anelia passed his purse to her father, giving a grave dip of her glossy head. He was admiring her composure when the unfathomable change that had been bothering him from the moment he laid eyes on her struck home. 

Her fingers were bare.

“My Lord of Etinsmere.” Nain’s light voice rang hoarse with overuse as he dropped the jingling bag into Drinian’s extended palm. “A pleasure as always! Your wound heals well, I trust?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” He shot up from his discreet reverence to full height, goggling at the amused King. “It was barely a scratch.”

“More than that, but naught, we read in Sir Ram’s report, to that inflicted on the scoundrel that dealt it. Yourself and your shipmates do credit to two kingdoms.”

“Small enough credit one gains that sits on its hands in defiance of ancient obligation, Sire.”

“Your courage in battle for another King’s crown reflects more glory on Narnia than the Lord Miraz’s inactivity,” With a pacific smile Nain pressed his hands, clamped tight around the royal bounty. “Your relations ask me to convey their regret, and naught less than your uncle’s recent sickness would cause my Lady Westerwood to let pass so auspicious an occasion. Corin! Where is the parcel entrusted to us?”

“Um – here, Father.” Fumbling about in a large canvas sack, Corin emerged triumphant to wave a large box. Drinian’s dark eyes widened.

“Marchpane?” he asked, just resisting the childish urge to snatch.

“Your aunt declares a sweet tooth to be an Etinsmere inheritance.” Nain chuckled at his instant assenting nod. “So: from your good friends at Anvard are added sugared fruits enough to share with all your shipmates.”

“Thank you, Sire.” The faint hiss of indrawn breath at his back was Darin, greedily smacking his flabby lips. “On behalf of all the lower decks! My uncle amends well, I trust?”

The taut, pinched cast returned to the King’s gaunt features. “Not so well as the physicians would like: and not so well as he might were he to forego his nightly tot! Still, he’s well enough to send his commendations through me, and I am commanded by a lady to say, you are long overdue a visit to Westerwood.”

“The next leave I have, Sire. Give them my word on it.”

“The word of Etinsmere is enough for any sensible man. Now, this shipmate shuffling beside you, will you give us his name? I take him to be an honest fellow.”

“Wat, Your Majesty: and while I’ll vouch for his honesty, I shouldn't commit myself on any other virtues - saving courage.”

“Two’s more’n most folk’d credit me with, Your Majesty.” Even Wat minded his tongue in royalty’s presence. The King chortled.

“Your Captain speaks well of you, Messire Wat; and if you have the friendship of Drinian here I’ll wager you’re a worthy fellow! Join your shipmates – and be kind enough _not_ to devour your gifts all at once, as my Lord Admiral and his lady have laid on as hearty a spread as I ever saw in the Banqueting Hall. Ah, you must be Darin and Sarin, the cousins of whom we hear such praise! Step forward, gentlemen, and receive your rewards! They have been, by Sir Ram’s account, honourably earned!”

*

They filed into the Admiral’s great hall, with its vaulted oak ceiling: courtiers on one side of the room, Drinian noted sourly, and seamen on the other. He noticed the Prince gesturing madly, and took half a step his way before good sense could haul him back. “Not here as a nobleman, Lion be thanked,” he muttered, dipping behind Topasio’s greater bulk. “Hi, Berix! Toss a roll starboard, will you?”

“Glad enough, Drin.” Musicians began to flute from the balcony, and immaculate servants in green and gold tabards appeared in doorways to offer drinks and dainties left and right. “Sooner be spendin’ my bounty on Fisherman’s Wharf than minding my manners here,” he added, ducking away from his hostess’s line of sight. “‘s all very well for a gentleman like you...”

“Is it?” He could feel their eyes on him: Corin and Anelia; Lord Hastin and his damned mincing grandson Horstin; even the myopic stare of the King himself. He didn’t need to approach the fountain of wine at the dais to hear their whispered bemusement.

Why did their noble friend loiter with common seamen who shuffled their feet and tore their bread with rough, rope-weathered hands? It was not only the Lady Admiral with her wrinkled cheeks and puckered mouth who turned away when a mariner passed by. Even Barsin, the horse-keeper’s grandson, brought a scented kerchief to his face when Lain blundered too near. 

Berix’s innocent words gave the knot in his belly another twist. Surreptitiously Drinian scanned the faces of his shipmates, picking out every sly glance that fell his way. _Perhaps I ought to stand between the two groups_ , he thought grimly, fighting the urge to clench his fists behind his rigid spine. _I hardly seem to belong with either!_

Gradually the men relaxed, and the pompous aristocrats gathered around the King turned their supercilious attention to their neighbours. Drinian propped himself up against a tall granite column at the courtyard end of the hall, observing the two huddles with a jaundiced eye. The orchestra in the high gallery abandoned their stately airs for a jig; Wat and Dorix skipped a few rough steps, bringing guffaws from their fellows. And a bright copper head bobbed from the farther side of the room to join them.

“Corin!” Drinian breathed, warm pleasure flooding him at the sight of the Prince hopping an ungainly turn to the cheers of the crew. Loose mouth hanging open, big hands flapping, Nain’s heir caught the blushing Lain by the arm and spun him, winning a slap on the back and a round of applause from his company. If most of the King's party frowned, Drinian noted, their master did not.

His heir's informality appeared to be Nain's own cue to descend, mingling with his awed subjects with a graciousness Drinian could never recall Caspian the Ninth displaying. Behind him, never more than a pace away, came the Princess in her dark grey damask gown, bare hands carefully clasped against any fumbling gallantry. "Your Lordship will admit, such men as these are seldom admitted to Anvard," she whispered.

"Anvard's loss," he countered, one hand hovering beneath her bent elbow: not touching, yet subtly guiding her through the melee to the buffet tables. "A drink?"

"No, thank you." His brows shot up at her arch formality, returning to their usual level in recognition of Dorix's sandy head bobbing at the edge of their vision. "Pray do not be deterred from your meal, good fellow, by Our presence," she continued, almost going cross-eyed in her determination to stare down her straight nose at the flustered sailor. Drinian's hand twitched.

"Thank you, Your Highness." Dorix managed not to stammer, making an impressive reverence. Anelia smirked.

"This is my shipmate Dorix, Highness," Drinian announced, loud enough to attract the King's attention. "I believe his sister is a member of your household: Dorisa."

"Indeed?" With visible reluctance she offered a rigid hand for a kiss. 

"Aye, Ma'am; been your chief laundress these eight years past." Dorix's dark glance flickered from her face to Drinian's and back. As if he understood, Drinian thought, the unspoken tussle between them. Which was as well, since he barely understood it himself.

"Perhaps Your Highness might assure him of his sister's good health?" he suggested, the joints in his fingers cracking ominously as they laced behind his back. Anelia let fall a painfully false chuckle.

"My dear Lord Drinian, I have no cause to know my servants' conditions," she drawled, and he was thankful for the precaution he had taken with his hands, for had they been at his sides, they must surely have itched to wipe the condescending smirk from her prettily curled lips. "The woman is an admirable servant, I am sure. To remain so long in Our service, she must be quite satisfactory."

"Very glad I am to hear it, Your Highness." Though he had paled Dorix received the snub with better grace than Drinian could achieve, offering another excellent bow as he backed away. A hand thrust out to halt his escape, adorned with a large diamond ring and kissed by the ermine trim of a lush velvet sleeve.

"Your mother was in service to Our late Queen, Master Dorix," King Nain observed, able to meet the stocky sailor's eye direct as his daughter had not dared. "And as faithful to her mistress as Madam Dorisa is to hers. The fidelity of such honest families is the greatest treasure of Anvard."

"Thank you, Sire." Glowing, Dorix backed away: not before, Drinian noted with grim satisfaction, he had cast Her Imperious Highness the contemptuous look her ill-manners deserved. 

As if she guessed his thought Anelia inched away from him with her arms folded tight across her chest. "Don't look at me as if I've grown a second head!" she exclaimed. 

"If it were as sour as the present one, I should ask your father to have it cut off,” he shot back. “You know Dorisa perfectly well - I saw you laughing with her last time I came to Anvard. Why dismiss her brother so grandly?"

Her pout was, he thought, not half as attractive as she believed. "We are _royal_ , my Lord. We must keep a certain _distance_ between the common man and ourselves."

The tension that had twisted his nerves since entering the hall snapped, leaving Drinian light-headed. "Then if Your Highness will excuse me, I'll return to my proper place."

"Drinian!" Her hand shot out to seize his wrist. Impatient, he shook her off.

"You are of the court!" she squealed.

"Not today." Nor ever, if the court condoned her patronising airs. "I'm summoned as a man of the _Tiger's_ crew. Surely my presence pollutes the _courtly air_? Bid Your Highness good day."

Her sweet face crumpled but he turned defiantly away, almost running straight into a shamefaced Corin. "I'm sorry, Drinian," the Prince muttered. "She's in disgrace with Father you see. _Behaviour unbecoming of a Princess._ "

"Intolerable rudeness?" He made no effort to moderate his voice, barely restraining the urge to look back as the blow struck. Air whistled through the small gap between Corin's large front teeth.

"An _intrigue_ with a pantryman. All her jewels have been removed, and she's not permitted out without Father or I as chaperones. If she weren't trying to remind Father that she _is_ able to behave like a princess, she should never have snubbed your friend."

"She shan't win favour for the Royal House by insulting its better subjects." He clamped down on the glimmer of amusement the thought of her condescending to a mere servant would otherwise have caused. "And you, Corin? No assignations with the chamber women?"

"Aslan's Mane, no!" The words emerged from a strangled giggle. Corin's pale blue eyes watered. "Upset Father? Gracious, I'd not dare!"

Drinian grinned. "I’ll wager His Majesty appreciates that."

"I know." Ruefully smiling, the Prince pulled him out of the way of Gurin and Ram, marching with bowed heads straight for them and the courtyard door beyond. "Sometimes I think I should have been the one in petticoats, Anelia's so much _bolder_ than I! When do you sail again?"

"Two days' time. You heard the Terebinthians sent a sloop against Lionwood?" Rash and ineffectual as it had been, the minor raid demanded a response, and exposure even for an evening to proper society, Drinian discovered, had increased his martial spirits tenfold. "We expect to be out for a few weeks, and then - pass word to Westerwood if you can - I promise I shall make that visit Aunt expects!"

*

He stumbled up the gangplank before day could more than kiss the farthest horizon, his eyelids crusty and the thrum of distant thunder reverberating inside his skull. "Mornin' Boson," he growled, nausea rising against the furry feel of his mouth. Marix guffawed.

Drinian flinched. 

"Busy last night was it?" the older man asked, too brightly.

His shoulders lifted of their own accord. "Must have been," he agreed, giving his aching temples a rub. "I remember rolling down the main street with Wat, Dorix and three sisters all bawling _Back to Barwell Bay_ after midnight... are they aboard yet?"

"Stumbled up the gangway a few minutes ago lookin' even more disreputable than you." Under normal circumstances no great surprise Drinian acknowledged, but with his hair on end and his eyes barely open he doubted he looked his courtly best. "Throw some water on your face, comb your hair and find some fresh clothes before reporting for duty, Drin. The lasses'll wait! A couple o’ weeks and we'll be back ashore. I’n't that so, Cap'n?"


	43. Forty-Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From the high-jinks of Barwell it's back to the high seas for Drinian. The horrors of war are about to become very, very real.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where I stopped, the last time I worked seriously on this story. The war crime depicted is very much at the edge of vision, but it's impossible to ignore - deliberately so. The bloodshed isn't graphic, but I hope it stays shocking.

Even before his eyes could creak open on the fifth day out, Drinian knew something had changed. Sounds were stifled, and even the monotonous cussing of Wat, struggling into chilly hose, seemed distorted. His clothes, hung from the bulkhead in readiness, were damp, and the very motion of keel through water felt oddly sluggish. Still lacing his brown leather jerkin he ambled up to the poop hatch, unsurprised by the dank caress of a heavy fog against his cheek.

"There's coffee in the galley," the Old Man informed him without glancing up from the compass. "But mind your step! This infernal _mist_ leaves a skin o' moisture on everything. Masthead! Any sign of the squadron?"

"None, Cap'n!" Berix's voice had the same strange quality Drinian had observed below deck, as if the very dampness of the air were slowing the passage of sound. "Comin’ down thicker if anything, Sir. Can barely see the for'ard lamp!"

"We lost sight of their sternlights during the night," Lain explained as he hurried to the galley before the coffee pots could be emptied. "Then this damned _cloud_ come down, and we've as much chance o’ findin’ ‘em as we have of meetin' Aslan! Coo! Drink your coffee quickly Drin, ‘fore it can freeze. I'd swear it's cold enough!"

The mist had an unsettling effect on everyone it seemed, muting conversation and slowing one's movement, as if the moist air were thick as treacle. Lanterns shone fore and aft with an otherworldly glow; the figures moving across deck were shapeless phantoms. Droplets of moisture formed in the hollows beneath his high cheekbones, seeping through his flesh and into the bone. Drinian was convinced he had never been colder. 

Minutes slipped into hours. The gloomy curtain continued to enfold them. He couldn't remember the last time anyone had spoken.

"Deck there!" Berix's quavering shout made every shadow on deck shudder. "Summat loomin' off the port bow! Enemy ship! Cap'n, enemy ship!"

"Arm yourselves!" Ram hardly had time to bellow before the first arrows came lancing into the deck, sending men racing for what little cover they could find. "Drinian! Aft starboard! A second ship!"

"And a third!" An amorphous mass loomed behind the poop from the port side, spitting arrows and hellish shouts. Drinian wrenched his cutlass from its sheath, startled by the complete absence of fear to cloud his brain. Almost surrounded. Isolated. Only the soft thud of falling comrades, their groans thick in the cold air, to concentrate upon.

He snatched one of the heavy shields lying by the tiller, hefting it above his head for the metallic rain of arrow tips to patter over. On the balls of his feet he braced himself for the inevitable shock of hulls colliding.

The forward ship struck first, rocking _Tiger_ backward to grind against two black-painted brigs, shaking her to the base of her keel, sending half her company sprawling and the mainyard crashing down, crushing the unfortunate Lain despite a panicked yell from the Mate. “Repel boarders!” he heard Ram howl above the mocking screech of Terebinthian blasphemy raining with their arrows. “Every man stand his….”

“Captain!” Encouragement ended on a sickening gurgle. Dropping his guard, Drinian spun on his heel to find Ram slumped before the wheel, blood and foam dribbling from his gaping mouth and the shaft of a rough arrow, its feathers matted and grimy, protruding from his windpipe. “Mate!”

“Stand yer ground and fight like ‘e’d want, Drin!” Topasio had assessed the situation in a glance, stepping over his commander’s corpse as he might a discarded roll of sail canvas. More gently as he passed the petrified youth, he added: 

“At least it were quick: old feller’d like that. To me _Tigers!_ Keep the villains away from the wheel!”

Blurred shapes were swarming over the bulwarks, emitting screams of profanity that clanged harshly against ears muffled by the enveloping fog. Pirates he was accustomed to, Drinian thought briefly, tossing aside his cumbersome shield now the infernal metal hailstorm had stopped. They were never half as terrifying as these faceless, formless creatures that came barging through wet cloud with almost undetectable weapons whirling.

“Stand together, _Tigers!_ ” he heard Topasio holler. “Charge the swine for’ard! With me, men, for Ram’s sake!”

Drinian was swept in the mass of clammy humanity, down the ladder with cutlass lashing, stumbling on a flabby shape that whimpered and clutched at his ankle. His sword arm burned with tension as it stabbed and slashed ahead, cutting a swathe through anything he could not barge from his path. The press grew thicker, the carpet of sobbing injured deeper the farther from the poop he strayed. And still there was no thought of self; no panic to claw through the innards. 

Something wound around his foot. Roaring the ship’s name he kicked it impatiently aside, spearing an irate glance down to a boot festooned with strands from a thick grey-brown plait.

Marix.

The Boson’s bruised face was turned seaward, half the slackened jaw sliced clean away. Phlegm rose, a greasy coat to his tongue as fury eased the cramp in his arm and sent him tearing through the thickest part of the fray, lungs bursting with each cry of “Tiger!” he expelled. The voices which answered were fainter; many were enfeebled, rising from about his knees. Yet if the meaning registered in the murky forest of heaving bodies, restricting his swing and chopping his defensive strokes, Drinian did not acknowledge it.

Perhaps, he decided much later, he dared not.

The first thing to lance clean through his battle-maddened brain since Topasio’s rallying shout was the harsh command of an alien voice above him on the poop. “Cut their bloody ‘alyards! Bring down the banner!”

He was fortunate the knot of Terebinthians around him stopped to peer aft. With a whoosh that was lost amid their triumphal roar, Archenland’s arrow-torn banner quivered down from the masthead as if it were embarrassed, to be trampled by the invading horde. “Shall we kill ‘em all, Master?” someone barked.

“They be prisoners o’ war, you ‘alf-witted drunkard.” Around the few crew left standing, knots of leering conquerors formed, taking turns to press their faces – round and flattish, each more bristled or drink-mottled than the last – close, puffing hot, dank breath as they jeered. “Push ‘em to the entryport, them that can walk. Archenlandish scum, shift yerselves!”

Someone shoved him hard in the lower back. Drinian lurched forward, keeping his head ducked from the random blows aimed at it. He could hear Wat’s familiar rumble, the clipped diction of Dorix, and a low keening sound he rather thought was Berix, and he fought to focus on them through the threatening growl of _Tiger’s_ new masters. As a descant came the shrill squeaks of the wounded, their breathing laboured as they tried to drag their bloodied bodies after their captive shipmates. 

Careful to make no sudden movement he thrust both hands deep into his jerkin pockets. Very delicately, he eased his thumbnail beneath the broad gold band sitting snugly around his middle finger, stopping a gratified sigh as it slithered free. By wriggling his fingertip he widened a small tear in the fabric, pushing until the Etinsmere signet could drop freely into his coat’s lining. He dared not glance at the hand as he withdrew it, painfully conscious of its nakedness with the glinting badge of his identity removed. 

He spied Wat trying not to look at his fingers as they were shoved together at the entryport. “All right, Drin?” the older man hissed, the punch thrown by a loitering rogue all but bouncing back from his solid bicep. 

His mouth was too dry for speech: and anyway, he barely knew what the answer should be. Uninjured was the best Drinian could allow himself to admit, aware of the roll of nausea in his stomach and the chill prickle of each nerve ending. He felt clammy. He was sure the deck was wavering beneath his feet. 

_Is this what seasickness feels like?_

The cacophony of pirate celebration had faded. The scream of a gull lost somewhere in the murk was deafening amid the subdued moans of wounded men whose blood he could see trickling into the seams between _Tiger’s_ pristine planking. A pair of plum-coloured boots stomped into his line of sight an instant before slug-like fingers, stained yellow-brown by tobacco, dug themselves deep into his tight jaw.

“Well, me self-righteous hearties.” The Terebinthian captain drawled, dragging his prisoner’s head up. “Think y’selves lucky we’re the Royal Fleet o’ Terebinthia. But for ‘is Majesty King Tonlock’s express command that blood not be _needlessly spilled_ , no order of mine’d keep these good patriots from splitting your well-fed bellies! Bind ‘em. lads!”

Drinian swallowed hard, forcing himself to hold the ruffian’s challenging stare. One eye was dark, deepset and bloodshot. What the other had been like, he could not guess.

The ball had been torn out, leaving the empty socket to gape sightlessly at victims too stricken with shock to react. His stomach lurched queasily, but he refused to be broken.

Satisfaction warmed his frozen innards when the Terebinthian looked aside first, dissipating as the turn of his head brought the ghoulish socket directly into his line of sight. Pinkish and puffy, it must be the remnant of a recent injury: one as likely obtained in a tavern brawl as with sword in hand if the purplish hue of the misshapen nose was any guide. The man gave him a violent backward shove into the pincer grasp of two guards who wrenched his shoulders, pinning his arms behind his back. “Struggle and we’ll rip yer arms out their sockets, Archenlander!” one of them growled.

He swallowed the instinctive disclaimer with the cry that began to escape at the first cut of fishing wire through the tender flesh of his wrists. His captors pulled it tight, slicing with clinical precision until he could feel the ticklish trickle of blood dribble to slick his palms. 

Unlike Wat or Crain, he did not struggle or swear. With shoulders squared and head held high he silently dared his captors to do their worst, relishing each tiny victory as one after another faltered beneath his haughty demeanour. Dorix; Sarin; himself, Wat and Crain. _Where in the Lion’s name are the others?_

“They’re all secured, Master.” A swarthy elf of a man shoved past, and with his ankles bound even Drinian’s innate balance was unequal to the challenge. He lurched like a landsman, clamping down the squawk of unfamiliar panic just in time. His fall stopped by a Terebinthian’s careless grab, he missed the meaning of the man’s next words. “Not wastin’ our medicines on this rabble, then?”

He saw the leader’s hand slash across his throat. A malicious grin spread over the little man’s face. With a hiss, his dagger was out from its scabbard.

Bound hand and foot there was nothing he could do, not even to block the gruesome noise from his ears as _Tiger’s_ conquerors strode the length and breadth of her decks, stooped with bare blades dripping with gore while they moved methodically from one cowering victim to the next. Acid burning his throat, teeth smeared with the blood which flooded his bitten mouth, Drinian stared fixedly at a pulsing dark stain spreading over the deck, sure the last piteous pleas of his friends were emanating from within his own skull. Individual voices were too horrible to identify, but his recalcitrant ears must separate each one: Berix, sobbing for his mother; Topasio; Darin, blaspheming to his last frail breath. The pool on the deck surged again.

He could not hear his captors laughing, congratulating each other on their filthy work. He was oblivious to the faint sway of movement as they carried him toward the side, and the thud with which he hit the deck of their vessel inflicted bruises to his buttocks and back he could never understand. Blood had permeated _Tiger’s_ shattered core, trickling in narrow streams down her sides to dissolve in the ocean’s depths. Decks he had heard throb with the raucous voices of a happy crew were silenced. 

Marix. The Captain. Topasio and Darin; Lain and Berix. All gone. That some would fall in battle, he understood. It was natural: even admirable. But the rest… cold, relentless slaughter of a defeated foe was an action worthy only of a tyrant.

_Or a usurper._

“Set ‘er alight, Master?” the high voice rang exultant over the deeper grumble of Wat’s impotent fury. The one-eyed commander, Archenlandish blood matting the ends of his jet-black hair, spat in his face.

“And deny their countrymen fair warning of what happens to them that challenge us? You’re as much a fool, Murlock, as the day you first came aboard! Push off, my lads! Drop these scum safe in the tower. There’s more still out for us to slay tomorrow!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I have now all but finished my take on Drinian's youthful adventures, I'm not planning to leave this hanging again!


	44. Forty-Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's a prisoner of war. For how long?

In daylight, on a friendly coast, he supposed their eventual destination might be picturesque: even romantic. As if it grew directly from the barren grey bluff, the ancient citadel of Port Terebinthia lowered over the shackled party of prisoners being rudely shoved up the rough-hewn path toward its gaping maw. “Black Jack’s Tower folk call it,” Sarin growled, the words hot and sticky against Drinian’s ear. “Named for a damned villain, and ruled by ‘is heirs even now!”

“No yakkin’ yer cowardly knave!” The knotted end of a thin leather whip flashed by the younger man’s cheek, catching Sarin below the ear. Blood seeped through the broken skin, but with his hands tightly bound the seaman could only curse, stumbling along a track rutted by a thousand years of similar use. Roped to him, Drinian staggered too.

Blessed shock wrapped him in a numb embrace, holding his head high and his knees together while their bloodied band was shoved and jostled into the fortress’s crumbling keep and down a steep spiral stair. “Now scum, pay heed to me!”

The pirate captain’s voice rebounded off damp-stained dungeon walls, all studded with iron plates from which dangled rusty lengths of chain. “So long as your addled _king_ keeps his foolish war alive, you’re ours to do as we please with. Make no trouble for us, we’ll make none to you. You – you with your officer’s button, lead the way for your men! Give us your word of honour there’ll be no escape. Be civil, and you’ll have rations enough – aye, even the freedom o’ the courtyard twice a day.”

Etinsmere pride revolted. Carefully, deliberately, Drinian spat in his captor’s remaining eye.

“Oh, we’ve a live ‘un here!” Almost languidly a massive fist flicked to his jaw, the effortless blow sending him sprawling into Wat’s bulk. “Load the blackguard with chains, Torlow! Let’s see how bold the fine gentleman feels after a night hanging from a cold wall, eh?”

Roughly he was dragged from his companions, and though their manhandling invited retaliation Drinian restrained the urge to struggle as his ropes were replaced by filthy iron cuffs and his shoulders were wrenched back to connect with jagged and crumbling stone. “Your parole, scum!”

Now Torlow presented himself as a target. Inwardly steeling for the response his futile gesture must earn, he spat straight and true.

“Drin!”

“Hold yer tongue coward, the lad’s done right!” Wat lumbered forward, his voice loud enough to be heard even through the pain screaming through Drinian’s body as the guardian of the fort swung a great iron bar hard into his midriff. “You’ll get no promise from me, yer pox-ridden scum! Chain me up wi’ me friend there, aye, and kick at old Wat if y’ dares!”

While the pirates turned fist, boot and club to their new target Drinian allowed himself the luxury of a low groan, grateful for respite, however short-lived. The odd wild blow still came his way; over the clashing din of blasphemy he heard Crain and Sarin shrill their pledge of parole, and the scornful laughter of their jailors. Dorix he heard cursing one and all as liverish poltroons, until the smaller man’s sharp accents dissolved in a sickening moan.

“See those two above stairs with their wiser fellows.” The rogue named Torlow sounded breathless. _As if the beating of bound men is unfamiliar work_ , Drinian thought grimly, already certain it was anything but. “As for these peacocks, they’re safe enough in Mortlock’s charge! Two weeks in his hands brings most of these miserable dogs to their senses, but my thanks for this brief period of sport, Captain. Admiral Wenlock will be pleased, and these show more spirit than most of your leavings! It’ll be our pleasure to break ‘em before you’re next in port.”

*

“Oi, guard! This floor needs a sweepin’ yer knows! Blowed if I b’ain’t seen pigsties kept better than this!”

“Clean animals, pigs: so my grandfather said,” Drinian observed amiably, trying not to wince in sympathy with his starboard neighbour as Wat’s litany of mocking protest earned a solid punch to the ribs. “Cleaner than Terebinthians, if this is any guide. Ugh!”

“You’ll get used t’ blows if insolence is your habit, cur!” He writhed awkwardly, unable to stand straight or hunch in comfort from his strategically-placed tether and grunting under a second blow that knocked what little breath remained from his lungs. “Mind yer manners, give us no trouble and y’ _might_ see the end o’ this war!”

*

Sound advice, Drinian decided as hours melted into days, time’s passage discernible by the coming and going of sentries and the provision of meagre rations, that his lordly temper flatly refused to heed. Flanked by Wat and Dorix, he accepted the lumpy porridge, thin gruel and stale crusts reluctantly provided with the worst grace he could muster, his defiance bolstered by theirs. Other prisoners from neighbour cells shuffled around them on their guarded excursions above ground to foetid privies, all careful to avoid the eyes of the rowdy newcomers. Hollow-eyed phantoms who cringed from their captors’ lightest word, they offered no hope of support in raising a ruckus.

It barely mattered. Chained together in the dark, one man deflecting the attention of their rum-sodden jailers when his neighbour’s punishment lasted too long to bear, the trio of _Tigers_ whistled, sang and spun yarns to help time crawl by, ignoring their rough guardians as best they could.

Careless cruelty became tedious: whether the disinterested slap that announced breakfast, or the grinningly malicious kick to the shins that swiped a dangling man’s legs from beneath him, wrenching every muscle in shoulders, arms and back as he struggled for a near-upright position in his chains. Like the foul food and the enveloping stench, it was familiar. Almost comforting.

Less so the daily visits Warden Torlow made for the sadistic pleasure, Drinian gathered, of joining his henchmen’s crude games. “Willing to give your word to stay put yet, young master?” he sneered, trailing garlic and rum fumes strong enough to make even Wat gag in his wake. Drinian made the only movement possible. He turned his face away.

“There’s better rations above stairs. Your shipmates don’t waste their scrawny muscles as you lack-brained curs do.”

Wat hissed a curse against _damnable scurvy traitors_ that ended in a growl as the warden’s truncheon struck him square amidships. Drinian winced in sympathy.

“I doubt your hospitality’s much more pleasing above stairs, Torlow,” he drawled, deliberately omitting the expected courtesy. “As well you’re a pirate’s lackey! You’d never make a living as an honest innkeeper.”

Dorix’s chortle almost drowned the crunch of knuckle on bone. “Ah, thank you!” Drinian gasped, snatching what small satisfaction there was from the bleary image of his assailant shaking out a stinging hand. “I was missing a sight o’ the stars in this damned pit!”

“Insolent dog!” Torlow roared. Wat heaved his bulk to starboard, chains a-rattle as he tried in vain to shield his slighter comrade. “I’ll thrash this preening Archenlander arrogance clean out of you, boy!”

“Loose these chains and we’ll see how bold you are, knave!”

He heard the whistle of air through pursed lips and tensed every muscle against the rain of blows his discourtesy should provoke. It never came.

Harsh laughter echoed through the dungeons and his bonds were yanked hard enough to burn their rusty imprint even deeper into his wrists. “I like your spirit, wretch!” Torlow bawled, and blows would have been more welcome than the stink of sour breath blown over Drinian’s face. “But I’ll break you yet for the dumb yearling you are! Half rations for all three o’ these dogs, d’ you hear? Mayhap his fellows’ suffering will stop our proud officer’s tongue!”

“Don’t keep silence on our account, Drin!” Dorix yelled as the door screeched shut, on the laughter of their captors. “By the Lion’s Mane, had I but a sword in my hand…”

“Those lily-livered ninnies would be halfway across the island before you could draw it.” The blood-tinged haze that buffered him whenever Torlow appeared fading, Drinian managed a raspy chuckle. “I ought to be wiser than to have that scoundrel provoke me.”

“’e’d b est ‘ope for a long war if ‘e’s plannin’ to break you, _m’Lord_ ,” Wat muttered, giving a nudge from the starboard bow Drinian felt ripple straight through to his larboard neighbour. Tiredly he tried to bump back, spitting a curse as the physical effort clanked his infernal chains. “You torment the old brigand all you choose. Me an’ Dorix’d do the same if we ‘ad your wit!”

“Aye, like enough to be true.” Aimlessly the smaller man started a rhythmical clack of iron against stone, still trying to play a favourite shanty on the paltriest of instruments. “What’s it to be, Drin? _The Gallant Girls o’ Galamaia_? Or shall I try _When Our Tiger She Led The Way_ , just for the sport of it?”

*

Dorix’s playing deteriorated with every day that passed, his small frame weakened more than his burlier shipmates by putrid air and rations to match, but he obliged Wat’s frequent requests all the same while the big sailor swayed and tapped his feet, struggling to add the melody of his bonds to his friend’s. “How long’ve we been ‘ere d’ you reckon?” he mumbled, head bowed against the glower of a dozen surly sentries as they shuffled back from their morning visit to the latrines. “A week? Two?”

“Blowed if I know.” Dorix stumbled into him from behind, and worriedly Drinian turned to examine the topman’s jaundiced face in too-bright natural light. “Had these other cowards a tenth of our spirit I’d be tempted…” he growled.

“Too many of ‘em. Hi Dorix y’ bletherin’ dog! Stop yer moanin’ mouth, blackguard! Me an’ Drin ‘re mortal tired o’ the racket!”

“Wat!” Further protest was stopped by a wink as they were manhandled roughly back down the lichen-drenched stair to their dungeon. “Got meself a plan,” Wat muttered, taking advantage of the uneven footing to crash into his friend. “’ere we are, me ‘earties! ‘ome sweet bloomin’ ‘ome!”

The sarcasm earned its bone-jarring reward. Wat’s head jerked back, crunching against the wall. Along with his tether, Drinian was sure he felt every bone in his body rattle.

“If that’s your plan, I daresay we’ll need another,” he quipped when the door slammed, and utter darkness engulfed them. Wat managed a reluctant gurgle. “And for the love o’ the Lion stop this _jigging about_! I’m bruised enough by our landlords’ attentions. I hardly need your elbow in my chest too!”

“Aye, an’ these scurvy old chains are as rotten as me last few teeth. Wager they wouldn’t ‘old a bedridden dame more’n another day…”

Unbidden, an oath to horrify half of Anvard broke from Drinian’s tight throat. “Confound you man, why couldn’t you _say_ so!” he hissed, aware of the creeping rise of hysteria in every word. “Late, when the sentry’s deep in drink…”

“If Dorix’ll be kind enough t’ bring the addled whoreson close enough…” Gently, careful not to break the last rotten link too soon, Wat shook his restraints again. “’m not the man I were – and you’ll never ‘ear me moan about the toughness o’ the ship’s beef again – but I’m strong enough t’ fell that feeble rogue with both ‘ands tied be’ind me back.”

“Fortunate coincidence.” Even Dorix was all attention now, excitement piercing his fever like a cutlass’ point. “Oh, the pain! The suffering! That’s the notion, is it?”

For the first time since Captain Ram’s last breakfast joke, the laugh tickling Drinian’s tongue felt real. “A wonder you’ve survived this long in such agony,” he muttered. “Two hours after dinner? He’ll be drunk enough to be seeing three of us each by then!”

*

Not a day of their captivity had passed slower than the hours since their plan had been made. Drinian swallowed his flavourless soup that evening in sullen silence, resolved to invite no final act of Terebinthian violence. If the goggling fool who snatched the bowl away too fast thought him cowed, so be it. The shock of their attempt – he dared not use the word _escape_ even in his own head – would be the greater for it.

Even Wat’s muttered litany of complaint and obscenity fell silent, all three prisoners straining their ears for the telltale clang of pewter on flagstone that signalled the nightwatchman’s descent into alcoholic stupor. “ _Now_ , Dorix!”

Instantly the cell was filled the otherworldly groans and wails: either a man in his dying agonies or a whole company of the ghosts alleged to lurk in the Black Woods, Drinian decided, and enough to rouse even the surliest of incurious sentries. As Wat hollered for succour and Dorix threshed, he sucked in a great gulp of rancid air and stretched his much-abused spine as far as his bonds would allow, in readiness for what might come.

“Wha’s the commotion, cur!” The door crashed inward, ignored by a sentry befuddled with drink and sleep. Deaf to the scrape and grate of metal grinding as it broke free of stone he stooped, setting his grimy lantern aside and revealing a craggy profile as he peered into the face of the wailing prisoner. Drinian squeezed his eyes shut. _No need to watch the blow fall._

The _swoosh_ of chain curled a breeze against his face. The _crunch_ of metal on a shaven skull followed; then a soft grunt, and the deep, thudding sound of a giant oak being felled in a distant forest. “Tha’s ‘im out for the night,” Wat announced happily, looming up ominously beyond lamp’s faint puddle of light. “See the keys, Drin?”

“Aye.” By a little twisting and flailing he contrived to kick the clanking bundle free of the sentry’s belt, wincing at the dull thump of Wat’s knees hitting the floor. “If there’s a tooth left in your head after this…” he muttered, trying not to shudder at the sight of his friend’s gaping mouth wrapped around the largest object it could grasp - a great brass barrel that must surely unlock the outer gates themselves. 

_If we can only get that far!_

Ten minutes’ cursing and struggling with spittle-drenched metal later all three men stood free, cautiously stretching aching backs, shaky legs and numb fingers. “Blowed if I can walk straight,” Dorix groused, bouncing from Wat to Drinian and back as they bound their hapless jailer, adding a gag torn from the Narnian’s battered jerkin for good measure. “Put him in my place and see how the scoundrel likes it! Take his sword, Wat. I have the keys.”

“I’ll lead.” Excitement and – loath though he was to concede it – fear supplied the strength to wasted muscles that captivity had drained. Cautious, Drinian peered into the corridor, head cocked to catch the muffled echo of voices drifting from the upper chambers. “Clear! Dorix – Wat!”

“Right behind you.” His voice high, almost breaking with a giddy mix of fever and anticipation Dorix stumbled forward, hesitating a second while Wat jailed their former jailor and handed over his keys. “Up, then sou’ east?”

“Aye.” A stout club lay at the staircase’s foot. Without hesitation, Drinian snatched it. “Prefer a cutlass,” he grunted, dragging himself up on the stair’s worn rail. Fresh air assaulted his nostrils, the sting of brine raw against the back of his throat. _The sea!_

_Careful_ , he chided himself. “Wat!”

“Theen ‘im!” Silent as a ghost, Wat crept beyond the stairwell’s shadow and darted across the square entrance chamber, sword already raised to strike a fatal blow. A soft gurgling sound reached his ears. Callously, Drinian pushed aside its meaning and ran.

At the courtyard door they hesitated, waiting for the stamp of patrolling feet. “Confident, i’n’t they?” Wat hissed, not quite certain enough to control a flinch when its hinges squealed against his lightest push. “Grab Dorix an’ run, Drin! Run like the devil Tash is on yer ‘eels!”

“Don’t – tell me you believe in him too?” The mild exertion made him dizzy and the slight weight of Dorix dragging on his arm almost pulled him down, but Drinian obeyed, waiting for the shouts; the hiss and swish of arrows on strings. Intent on listening for them, he ran straight into the fortress’ curtain wall. “Damn and blast!”

“Fine language for Anvard, m’Lord!” Dorix gurgled, hanging off his shoulder. Drinian gave him a sharp shake. “Sorry. My head… spinning…”

“Fancy I ran into a confounded _wall_ for the same reason.” The stars. He had missed them, but the mere effort of glancing up seemed to sap Drinian’s strength. “The keys?”

“Aye, o’ course, the keys.” Dorix’s hands shook so badly the sturdy barrel rattled in its lock, and turning it was too great an effort for one man alone, but together they succeeded, lurching back in awe as the final barrier to freedom dissolved.

“What!”

“Someone wantin’ me?” The gatekeeper’s panicked yell ended before the blade was withdrawn from his chest. Grinning hugely, Wat wiped the gory weapon against his own shirt, shoving the warm corpse briskly aside. “Run, me lads, straight for the wharf!”

Uneven cobbles slipped beneath his feet and the ragged huff of his own laboured breathing rolled like distant thunder, but Drinian obeyed without thought, head down as he staggered, with Dorix a dead weight on his arm, toward the pungent reek of rotten fish guts, refuse and rum he knew identified the harbour wall. 

No raucous voice cawed the alarm. Not even a stray mutt yapped in protest at their passage as he stumbled, hunched to hide his stark silhouette against the sky. There _had_ to be a boat!

“’ard a-port!”

Wat’s growl sent him spinning onto his new course, straight into the shadow of a grubby fishmongers’ stall, shuttered and locked against the night. Collapsing in its lee the fugitives huddled together, shivering as much from excitement as cold, every eye drawn to the wavelets glinting under a full moon’s light not ten yards away. The sea!

Lamplight flickered from the half-open tavern door beyond their sanctuary. Loud voices boomed from within, the unmistakable bellow of drunken sailors cut through with the laughing shrillness of their doxies. Dorix managed a crooked grin.

“A tot o’ what they’re drinking wouldn’t go amiss,” he muttered. Drinian shook his head.

“I’ll wait for a flagon of Westerwood’s wine. Look! Down to starboard, in the lee of that half-wrecked fishing smack. Big enough for three, I fancy…”

Loosely moored to the harbour wall it bobbed: barely bigger than a coracle, with a simple rudder and a single pair of oars. “The way off this damned island!” Dorix marvelled, inadvertently confirming that he too had doubted their chances. “Drin…”

Before his name was formed he was away, bent double and cursing the detritus of broken tile and twisted tankard that threatened a broken ankle in pitch darkness. Headlong he threw himself into the little craft, thrilling to its roll as he seized the tiller, testing its response against his palm. “Good enough,” he breathed, cupping both hands to his mouth.

The low hoot of an owl floated over the bay. A single strange form seemed to float against the night sky, breaking into two only when Wat fairly tossed his fainting companion aboard. “Cast off, Cap’n Drin!” he rumbled, grabbing hard enough at the oars to make the little vessel buck. “Sooner take me chances on the open waves than spend another minute ‘ere, and that’s a fact!”

Manoeuvring clear of Port Terebinthia’s flotsam required all the concentration he could muster, but after an age of inching and scraping along Drinian felt his craft come alive, her light weight skipping to meet open water’s giddy rush. Squinting, he scanned the cloudless sky until he spied the familiar constellation of the Beaver’s Snout shining brightly on the beam, and with a small sigh he turned his bow toward it: straight, he hoped, into the likeliest course of any friendly vessel bound to join the Terebinthian blockade.

His duty done, Drinian’s hand went slack on the tiller. The stars faded. Weakly, willingly, he succumbed to the inky darkness of oblivion’s embrace.


	45. Forty-Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A daring escape is one thing. What comes after? For Drinian, Wat and Dorix, the answer lies at King Nain's court.

It was the sound that roused him. Somewhere between a creak and a moan, the blessedly comforting sound of a stout oak hull giving way to wind and wave permeated his fevered brain and raised eyelids encrusted with salt and sleep. “Wha – where?” he mumbled, groggily aware his tongue was suddenly too big for its mouth. A large, callused hand scraped roughly against his brow.

“Easy, young master! Got some water for y’ - sip it slowly, not like that great lumberin’ ox of a shipmate of yours did last evening! Spewed it right back over the Mate’s one clean shirt ‘e did! I’n’t that so, Master Wat?”

“Wat.” The name chimed in his skull and Drinian flailed against his soft-spoken captor’s restraining arm, innards lurching at the wild sway of the hammock beneath him. “Where – who?”

“You’re aboard His Archenlandlish Majesty’s schooner _Diamond_ , Master Drinian,” the soothing voice crooned. Careful hands gripped his shoulders, gently levering him toward a sitting position, and he blinked against the cool spatter of water being delicately flicked over his face. “Picked you up two days ago at first light, drifting with the currents out toward Galma. You’ve the luck o’ the Lion we didn’t ram clean into you!”

Blurred faces swam across his vision: glimpses of thick dark beard and weathered cheeks; a toothless smile and the rim, carefully tilted, of a brimming beaker clawed in a brawny grip. “With the Lion’s luck we’d never’ve been prisoners t’ start with, master! That’s right Drin, drink yer fill! I’d offer a tot o’ rum…”

“Keep it f’r yourself, Wat.” Comprehension made him dizzy and he sagged gratefully in the supporting arms of the _Diamond’s_ kindly old Boson, letting the certainty of safety seep into his bloodstream. “Dorix?”

“Still feverish, but ‘e’ll live.” Ducking sideways, Wat revealed the third of their party tossing restively in another hammock close by. “Cap’n’s been right kind to us, Drin: listened to all I could tell ‘im, sent word wi’ the schooner _Sapphire_ to Barwell… even took dinner wi’ this rough tar to ‘ear our tale. Fancy ‘e’ll want tellin’…”

“Stay with your shipmates, Wat. I’ll call Captain down.” Carefully dabbing the last drops of cool liquid from Drinian’s lips, Boson surrendered his station to the bigger man, casting an assessing look Dorix’s way as he squeezed by. “I’ll bring some broth from the galley too – naught substantial ‘til your stomach’s fit for it lad, but better than the diet you’ve known lately all the same! Keep him talking, Wat – aye, and drinking too, if he’ll take a little more.”

“Gladly.” His eyes were clearing, his addled brain following suit Drinian realised with relief, shifting more confidently into the crook of his friend’s strong arm. “We’re Barwell bound then?” he demanded the moment the deck hatch closed. Wat’s bushy brows went up.

“Feelin’ the current’s flow already?” he marvelled. Drinian managed a choking laugh. 

“Wishful thinking more likely! Now quick, what’s the Old Man’s name? He has me at disadvantage, knowing mine – and likely enough my title too…”

“Aye, well, reckoned it’d do no ‘arm to our prospects o’ seeing ‘ome if it please your Lordship! Cap’n Norlix is our man – served wi’ Cap’n Ram in the old days. We’re in good ‘ands ‘til we make landfall Drin, don’t you worry!”

It was with solid ground under their boots again, Drinian discovered, that his new troubles began.

*

It was kindly meant, he reminded himself hourly. His aunt loathed Barwell, yet had hastened to its bustling wharves to oversee his recuperation in person. Uncle Dar detested the simpering ninny who succeeded him as admiral, yet suffered Lord Gurin’s prattling inanities in order to better support his nephew’s endurance of them. Wat and Dorix were welcomed into the Westerwoods’ Barwell residence, their health as much a matter of the mistress’s concern as his own.

And when the time came for him to ride north to Anvard, summoned to show himself before the King as a heroic survivor of Terebinthian cruelty, his shipmates rode with him, self-conscious in their newly-acquired finery. Their bruises faded, all three men made their bows in an antechamber off the main hall, shielded at least from the avid gaze of a full and curious court.

“My Lord Drinian – Messires Dorix and Wat! Right thankful We are to see you restored to health!” Hands outstretched King Nain bustled into the room with his son in ungainly pursuit, still shaking the dust of his daily gallop from his cloak. “When the truth of the _Tiger’s_ fate was known… by the Lion’s Mane my Lord, we scarce knew what to think! Your poor aunt knew not whether to grieve for you as drowned or pray for - for just such a miracle as this!”

“No miracle, Your Majesty.” Sinking elegantly to one knee, Drinian kissed the hand that flapped his way. “More the cussed stubbornness of three tars that kept each other afloat through the worst o’ weathers! Without my shipmates here, that watery grave might have been preferable.” 

“Aye, glad I am your Lordship had such stout companions.” Deadpan in their face of their more rustic reverences Nain offered his hand to first one man then the other, a fond smile ghosting his bloodless lips. “Now, come and sit with us, my daughter is summoning refreshments to her apartments. We have the reports from my Lord Admiral of your experience, so no need to dwell on that! Tell me: you are restored to full health? I fancy you’ve lost a little colour, my Lord – and Master Wat here’s not half the man he was when I presented your bounty at Barwell!”

“Getting there slowly, Your Majesty.” Only the careful pronunciation betrayed the big man’s nerves as he shuffled obediently through an arched doorway leading into an airy chamber, delicately painted in pastel shades, with large windows opening onto Anvard’s pleasant lawns. “Took a fair while ‘fore any of us could stomach good food again…”

“Our kitchens’ wares will, I trust, prove palatable enough.” Beaming benevolence, Nain perched on a dainty armchair beside the empty hearth, guiding his guests to cushioned couches and stools with a wave of the hand. “Ah, Anelia! Master Dorix, your sister was most anxious to reassure herself of your wellbeing…”

“Dorisa!” Forgetful of his company the sailman rocketed from his stool, almost knocking down a slim, merry-eyed woman in the plain green gown of the Princess’s household in his enthusiasm. As her father nodded and her brother clapped his enormous hands, the Princess Anelia cast a weary eye beyond her squealing laundress to snag her gaze on his.

Half-rising from his seat, Drinian gave a small bow. The corners of her ruby lips turned up and, keeping a stately glide to her steps, she crossed to take the vacant chair beside him.

“I trust, my Lord, you have taken no lasting injury from your Terebinthian leave?” she murmured, leaning in confidentially. Drinian bit his lip hard to keep from laughing.

“None so lasting as they’d have liked, Your Highness. And thank you – ‘tis a kindness on your part, to bring my shipmate’s sister.”

“The least we could do. Corin, _please_ sit down and don’t _hover_ like an angry stork! Your Majesty…”

“I’ll wager your brother strains to see tea arriving, my dear.” Nain’s flexible mouth pursed. “And later, my Lord Drinian, We dare to hope you’ll be so kind as to join your relations at Our table for supper? We have matters of business to attend first.”

“Sire?” Corin was hopping – more an agitated hen than the stork of his sister’s description, Drinian decided – as his father drew up to his full unimpressive height. Ice crusted in the pit of his stomach, little eased by the reassuring flicker of his neighbour’s dark glance. “Is all well, Your Majesty?”

“Very well my Lord.” Nain’s rising forced every man to his feet, all attention focussed on the room’s most unprepossessing figure. “Gentlemen all. Your service aboard the unfortunate _Tiger_ is known to Us as having been – in the words of the lamented Captain Ram – quite exceptional. Your courage and enterprise in escaping the captivity of our enemies is surely its equal.”

“Nothin’ but what every man should do Sire!” Wat burst out, subsiding into silence under Dorix’s indignat hiss. “Beggin’ your ‘ighness’s pardons an’ all,” he mumbled. 

Nain’s indulgent smile, Drinian guessed, only embarrassed his shipmate further. “Both yourself and Master Dorix, Wat, entered Our service unwillingly,” the King hedged, visibly discomfited by the slight reference to his pressgangs. “After such ordeals as you have borne, any man must wonder… 

“Should you choose to remain, I’ll pledge you the best berths our poor fleet can offer. Otherwise, gentlemen, allow a sovereign to perform the greatest of his duties and find more pleasurable service for gallant subjects to perform! Messire Wat?”

Wat cocked his shaggy head and pulled a fleshy bottom lip hard into his mouth. “I were no volunteer, Yer Majesty,” he admitted, standing straighter as each word emerged. “But – plain fact is, Sire, I’ve come to love the sea. It’s me ‘ome an’ I want for none better. If you can find us a fair berth I’ll take it, and gladly!”

Drinian let out the breath he hadn’t known he was holding. Nain, Corin, even Anelia: all smiled. “My Lord Gurin shall find you the best place he can – and attend your promotion with it,” the King promised, lunging forward to pump his startled subject by the hand. “And you, Dorix? Speak boldly, there’s none will hold honesty against you!”

Before their eyes even met, Drinian knew the decision was made. Almost imperceptibly, he nodded. 

Dorix sagged. His sister whimpered. “My son has want of stout honest men in his household, should choose to share your sister’s company,” Nain offered gently, quite perceptive enough to read the currents in the room. Corin’s head wagged so hard Drinian half-expected to see it bounce off across the parlour.

“You’ll be very welcome, Dorix,” he declared, barely waiting for the accepting nod to bound forward and seize his new attendant’s hands. “Do you ride as well as you fight? I’m in need of a swordsman amongst my men-at-arms; or an usher if you’ve a mind to settle quieter. Drinian…”

“Whatever position he takes Dorix will do credit, Your Highness.” Though he was barely half the other man’s age, Drinian felt the warm pride of a father – _or an officer_ , he amended - swell his heart under the twin smiles of his very different friends. “And ‘tis a fortunate man, whatever his station, that has such an ally at his shoulder! You’ll grant me leave to steal your man for a cup of ale when I come to court?”

“Of course!” Corin exclaimed, astonished it should need to be asked. Dorix grinned.

“Right glad I’ll be to serve it to you myself, my Lord,” he said, the formality allayed by the glint in his eye. Drinian chuckled.

“Never more than Drin to you, old friend! This rogue on the other hand…”

Wat’s chortle failed to quite drown out three sighs. “Are we to understand then that your mind’s made up, my Lord of Etinsmere?” asked the King gently. Drinian dipped his dark head.

“The sea is my life, Your Majesty: like Wat, I ask for no other,” he said simply. Where his heirs huffed, King Nain merely lifted a bushy brow above his spectacles’ rim.

“As your uncle predicted! I may at least assure your aunt in good conscience that I asked,” he said fondly. “As you will! The galleon _Retribution_ under Captain Kar lacks for a Second Mate…”

“Your Majesty is kinder than I deserve.” A new ship and crew, and promotion to boot! His heart skipped at the prospect. “I’ll be honoured to join her, Sire.”

“She’s refitting at Barwell for a few weeks yet.” Nain, he gathered, read his impatient excitement all too well. “Until she sails, we three – and your poor aunt I’m sure – would take it as a great kindness if you would remain our guest at Anvard.”

“Do stay, Drinian!” Corin yelped as his sister inclined her glossy head. “Father’s court’s so _staid_ , and you can see Dorix settled too!”

Spirits sinking as low as his bent knee, Drinian kissed the proffered Royal hand. “I am at Your Majesty’s service,” he promised, pleased with the neutral tone. The smallest twitch of a pert rosebud mouth implied not all his companions were deceived. 

“We shan’t say a word to my Lady Westerwood, don’t worry,” Corin muttered, dropping behind when they were summoned to take refreshments in the Princess’s dining chamber along the hall. “She’s determined to show you off, you know! I daresay we shall have quite the time of it, you, Anelia and I – and Messire Dorix of course!”


	46. Forty-Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Lord of Etinsmere is approaching seventeen. He's handsome, high in the King's favour, and now something of a war hero to boot. Drinian is, in Aunt Katharina's eyes at least, turning into something of a catch...

Supper at the King’s table led to dancing with the Princess at the head of the court: and if his aunt beamed down with pride, Drinian supposed the ordeal was not entirely wasted. His partner pointed out unfamiliar faces around the edge of the ballroom, whispering character sketches that made retaining the solemnity expected troublesome for both. “I’ll never be able to look at Barsin’s daughter without seeing a pair of rabbit’s ears on her head now!” he hissed as they spun past the unfortunate lady with the twitching nose. Anelia laughed.

“Best I don’t tell you what Corin says of her sister then – or the Lady Barisa’s poor witless cuckold of a husband,” she shot back, hiding her giggle in the dance’s stately turn. Drinian grinned.

“Best not Ma’am, unless you care to frighten this poor innocent tar straight back to sea,” he teased. Anelia shook her head.

“Oh no, my Lord! Your aunt has plans to see you occupied at court these next few weeks at least!”

The music ended abruptly. Matching her deep curtsy with a courtly bow, Drinian allowed his heart to sink a little farther. “Then I thank your Highness for fair warning,” he growled, accepting her proffered hand to lead her back toward the royal dais. Aunt Katharina’s eyes had been on him all evening, in equal measure assessing and reassuring. Drinian had thought nothing of it.

Murmuring his disclaimers to the King’s effusive praise, he was struck by an acute longing to be back at sea. Surely the galleon _Retribution_ would refit faster with her Second Mate aboard!

*

The days fell quickly into a dreary routine. Breakfast with the Westerwoods or, occasionally, in the Prince’s apartments. Mornings of gossip and cards with the court before lunch; then sedate hunting with the King’s party each afternoon, unless his mount and his uncle’s could become mysteriously separated in the woods long enough for a madcap gallop and a few minutes’ respite. After dinner came more cards, idle chatter or dancing. It was enough, Drinian considered, to drive a temperate man to drink.

“Your aunt means well,” Dar told him seriously as the second week dragged to its end and he escaped the clutches of the Lady Aneta, granddaughter to a kinswoman of King Nain’s third cousin twice removed (he thought), to join the older man on his daily stroll around the castle’s decoratively crenellated battlements. “And think yourself fortunate – she _did_ consider Barsin’s son’s squealing brat Naina as a potential sweetheart, given the King’s special favour for the old fool. You’ve seen the girl o’ course? Small, plump, querulous voice…”

“Sounds more like Prunaprismia – beg pardon, _the Queen of Narnia_ \- every time she opens her mouth.” Bitterness twisted the words, releasing some of the bile Drinian felt slosh in his stomach speaking them. “Yesterday it was Lord Aran’s daughter; today, Aneta. With whom am I expected to flirt tomorrow?”

“She’d see you settled and content with your life here.” Dar gripped his arm, guiding him into the shadow of the graceful western turret with uncharacteristic discretion as the bright, melodic young voices of Aneta and her cousin Beatriza floated their way from beyond the southern tower. “You’re no child, Drinian. What, nearly seventeen now, and as fine a fellow as ever put to sea. Miraz’s grip on Narnia is strong, but you’ve a fair position here. You stand high in the King’s favour; your title’s grander than any native lord can boast; and you’ve a promising career with our fleet. You’re a catch for any hopeful maid – aye, even without your handsome face!”

“My title’s empty so long as Miraz rules; royal favour can be lost more easily than it’s won; and Archenland, however kindly she handles me, can never be my home.” Keeping his voice low with an effort Drinian shrank back into the doorway’s arch, regret twanging through him at the disappointment on the old man’s mottled face. “What life I have here’s a sailor’s life, Uncle. You of all men understand that!”

“And your aunt knows the loneliness of the exile’s fate.” Both men held their breath as the ladies fluttered by on a waft of perfume and billowing sleeves. “Twenty-five years an Archenlandish wife, yet still _the Narnian Lady Westerwood_. Still a stranger. A good marriage makes separation from her homeland bearable, and more than anything she’d wish the same for you.”

It made, he conceded, a manner of sense. Aunt’s careful formality, her solemn insistence on the smallest detail of courtly ceremony, all born of the disjointed sensation of not belonging he knew far too well. “I’m sorry, Uncle,” he said, and to his surprise he truly meant it. “I’m not ready to admit Narnia’s lost to me yet!”

Dar nodded, carefully easing the door at their backs open. “I doubt you’ll ever concede that! You’ve too much spirit for surrender to a poltroon like Miraz. Humour your aunt and flirt prettily with the young ladies, there’s a good fellow, and you’ll have your escape soon enough! By the way, your new captain, this fellow _Kar_ … I hear he’s an oddity, and altogether too fond o’ the lash. Connected to that simpering crack-brain Gurin by marriage somehow, I believe. Have a care around him until you find you feet, eh?”

*

Captain Kar’s oddities he would welcome, Drinian decided late that night, just so long as they did not involve _dancing_.

Undeterred by her husband’s report, the Lady of Westerwood redoubled her efforts for the King’s grand birthday ball. Even Drinian’s excellent memory, never known to fail aboard ship, could not keep pace with the procession of names, faces and delicate hands presented to be whirled around the ballroom floor. Was the hawk-faced brunette Lina or Minette? Was the raucous redhead with the unfortunate case of sniffles Lord Marin’s daughter, or Lord Mar’s? 

More to the matter, did His Grace of Etinsmere actually care?

At last the musicians fell silent, and before he could be halted Drinian seized a fine glass goblet from the tray of a passing usher and dodged through the wide-open doors that led from the ballroom onto King Nain’s pristine lawn, pausing to let his aching head loll back against the crumbling cool of the castle wall. The hum of conversation carried from inside, tinkles of laughter slicing like a cutlass’s swipe through its rumble. Cold, unsalted air kissed his glowing brow. For the first time all evening he felt his tight chest expand in a deep, cleansing breath.

He never heard the crunch of gravel beneath her foot. Stayed blissfully oblivious of her amused scrutiny until she relaxed, slouching beside him with a gusty sigh. “Then I’m not alone in being chased from the chamber by admirers, my Lord,” she purred.

“Anelia!” When he started, courtly discretion chased away by surprise, she chortled. It was the most unaffected sound Drinian had heard all day. “By the Lion’s Mane d’ you mean to frighten me to death?”

“Am I so much more terrifying than the Terebinthians?” Challenging, she snatched the glass from his hand and gulped its contents in a single swallow. “Were it not for the war, he’d serve the wine unwatered,” she added, wrinkling her straight nose as she thrust the empty vessel back his way. “Mutton and potatoes, sponge cake and watered wine for His Majesty’s birthday, Drinian! When the blockade was in place I understood, but _this_ …”

“If the kitchen’s efforts are Your Highness’s greatest complaint o’ the evening, I should say you’ve escaped lightly.”

“True enough, and they make a subject for _polite conversation_ in their own way.” Stooping, she pulled off her jewelled shoes and stepped onto coolly ticklish turf, digging her toes into its softness. “Walk down to the fountains with me! We’ll be beyond sight of the terrace then, should anyone come looking.”

“Horstin and his poems?” he sympathised. The Princess groaned. 

“And Arn with his practised compliments; Nerix with his mincing step and his fluttering eyelashes. Now that prancing dandy _Morix_ joins in, can you conceive of it, lest his cousin Lord Sar should _attain the honour_ of wooing me. If I hear one more soft sighing voice tell me how much more _becoming_ moonlight is to my fair face than to any other lady’s…”

“Are royal ladies not always acclaimed beauties?” he wondered, ambling at her pace down the gentle hill toward the sound of the fountains’ cheerful play. “Hardly the fault of your suitors if their compliments are credible in your case.”

“Why thank you, my Lord.” Her simper turned his wry grin into a full roar of laughter that in turn triggered hers. Clinging to each other’s arms they tottered the rest of the way to flop onto a curved stone bench overlooking the Great Lion Fountain. “That may be the most artless praise I’ve had this year!”

“Then as a kindness to me, say naught of it to my aunt. I’ve heard lectures enough already this week against my _lack of the courtly tone_!” 

“A pity your rough tar’s ways don’t deter the parade of fine ladies she directs into your Lordship’s path.” Her head on one side, Anelia studied his serious profile so intently even he began to fidget. “I wondered when we switched partners in the last measure whether you weren’t wishing yourself a hundred leagues away,” she added. Drinian blinked.

“Did we switch to each other?” he asked, really startled. His companion pouted. 

“Your aunt’s strictures are well-earned if you’ll admit to not noticing my fair face even for a moment,” she cried.

“I’ve seen so many I daresay they all seem the same,” he half-joked, shaking off her playful punch. “And there was one moment at least in there I’d as lief have seen Warden Tonlock with his iron bar than another powdered hand coming my way.”

“Poor Drinian, pursued by half the gentlewomen of the realm!” she hooted.

“Poor Anelia, every nobleman’s son and grandson languishing with poetic love for her!” he shot back. She shuddered.

Theatrical, he thought, but not wholly so. Her discomfort was as real as his, and for all her royal blood the more to be pitied. “At least I’ve the promise of escape,” he muttered. “And the sooner – for Aunt’s sake as much as mine – the better!” 

“I envy you.” He had no doubt she meant it.

Several minutes passed in companionable silence before she spoke again, with a hesitancy at odds with her usual serene self-possession. “Drinian? Could we perhaps conclude a tactical alliance?”

“A bulwark against unwanted attentions?” The moonlight caught her profile, impish and eager, suddenly younger than their years. Less the elegant Princess of Archenland and more a co-conspirator. An equal.

A friend.

Her vigorous nod set the elaborate arrangement of delicate ringlets around her face dancing. “Your aunt won’t venture to send her companies of mere noblemen’s daughters into battle against the Princess Anelia,” she said, utterly assured. “And as to Horstin and the rest… with my Lord of Etinsmere’s great title and martial renown for my shield, I’m safe enough from their swooning and sighing. _Do_ say yes, Drinian! We’ll have Corin’s help I know; and think how we’ll laugh at their disappointed faces!”

“ _Title and martial renown_ matter less than your father’s kindness as long as I’m at Anvard.” There was, he considered, only one complication to such a pact, and he would be the sufferer if King Nain thought him presuming too far. “Were His Majesty to be affronted by my attendance on his daughter…”

“ _That_ , my dear Drinian, is where my addle-pate brother will be our friend.” Condescending as any court ambassador, she patted his hand. “Why! We’re scarce more than infants – Corin more than you or I, of course. And if my father questions, I shall tell him plainly! I’ve no wish to be wed to any of his doddering favourites’ grandsons, and if the mere presence of my Lord of Etinsmere at my shoulder deters them… well, they can hardly be as lost for the love of me as they all declare, can they?”

He laughed. He really, Drinian told himself, could do nothing more in the face of her insolent gallantry. “Best not distress His Majesty on his birthday with your declarations, I think,” he told her, forcing himself to his feet with a reluctance she equalled. “But – consider the treaty agreed, Anelia. I’ll stand your ally against all sighing suitors, so long as you’re mine against the interference of my aunt.”

She presented her hand. He shook it firmly. Laughter welled up again, and neither sought to repress it. “This,” the Princess declared with all the authority of her exalted rank, “is going to be such _fun_! You’ll dance the next with me, Drinian?”

“Gladly.” Feeling better than he had since the _Tiger’s_ fall, he dashed ahead to retrieve her abandoned satin shoes, presenting them with a flourishing bow. “Unless – being a babe in arms still – you’d sooner dance barefoot?”

“Testing the treaty’s strength so soon, my Lord?” Using his shoulder for support she fastened the jewelled slippers back into place before brushing aside the curtains and stepping back into the clammy heat of the castle. “Papa! Papa must we have all these _solemn_ dances all night? What I shouldn’t give for a jig!”

*

Their pact succeeded admirably for all parties, Drinian acknowledged when she challenged him next. The moment Anelia entered the public halls she waved to him. Like the suave courtier of his aunt’s training, he moved readily to her side. The heir himself scurried to join them and the King smiled down from his dais, pleased to see his children in unaccustomed harmony. The Lady of Westerwood watched, waited and said nothing, while lounging primped lordlings sent to preen by ambitious parents mumbled behind their hands against the insolence of a Narnian interloper.

Drinian had seen nothing funnier at a royal residence since Miraz’s wife found a mouse in her slipper. “You never did put it there!” Anelia hooted, slapping his hand.

“With your cousin as my lookout, I did.” People were staring – some hostile, many curious, a few much too speculative for his taste – but few dared approach the window seat they occupied closest to the throne. “We hid spiders in her linen chests, too.”

“Small wonder she loathed you! My Lord Horstin.”

“Most gracious Highness.” The most persistent of her devotees lingered a bare moment, glowering as Anelia returned her smiling attention to her neighbour. 

“As much as that simpering ninny detests me now?” Drinian enquired, arching a thick black brow. The most unladylike sound he had ever heard from her erupted from the Princess’s pursed lips.

“I shall miss you when you’re gone to Barwell, my Lord Drinian!” she exclaimed, much too loudly.

“Honoured to hear it, Your Highness,” he bawled back, making use of his best _foul-weather-at-sea_ tones. Horstin’s stiff posture, he noticed, was matched only by Lady Westerwood’s. “Although at this rate my aunt shan’t be sharing your sentiments,” he added more quietly. 

“Any other concerned relation would be planning the marriage by now!”

Their snorts of laughter, he gathered, only deepened his aunt’s formidable displeasure. “At least our parting when I’m called to my ship might be easier for her to bear,” he muttered, forcibly turning his gaze from Aunt Katharina’s lowering brow to the lovely, lively face of his comrade. “She has enough of those _coarse shipboard tones_ from my uncle! Look alert! Lord Aran’s brat, three points off the larboard bow!”


	47. Forty-Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Tiger was the pride of the Archenlandish fleet. Retribution, as her new Second Mate is about to find out, is a different proposition altogether...

His summons came two days later, and with a merry smile the Lord of Etinsmere bade farewell to Anvard, cantering across flat country toward the Winding Arrow and the bustle of Barwell Bay. The galleon _Retribution_ lay moored to the harbour wall, sparing her newest officer a squally damp row and keeping his uniform tunic respectable for presentation, Drinian noted idly, thankful at least for the feel of practical wool and leather against his skin after too many weeks of court finery. A barked order brought the ladder down over the side and, keeping the grin off his face with a painful effort, the Second Mate boarded his ship.

His high spirits dampened at the dumb silence that greeted his head popping over the taffrail. A pair of unkempt seamen turned to stare; a young lad continued sweeping the maindeck, apparently oblivious to the presence of any other being; and a slight old seaman with greying hair and a thin, pointed beard ambled unwillingly forward. “Aldar. Boson,” he announced, almost defiant. Vaulting aboard, Drinian tried a cautious smile.

“Drinian. Second Mate,” he countered, offering a hand at the man’s reluctant salute. Evidently startled, Aldar gave it a perfunctory shake. 

“Cap’n’s wi’ the Admiral,” he announced. “Stow your stuff below an’ I’ll call the Mate to meet you.”

“In his own good time, Boson.” Formalities completed, he allowed himself a curious contemplation of his new home. “She’s a smart one,” he observed amiably. Aldar scowled.

“Cap’n likes to keep ‘er that way,” he grunted, dismissing a compliment most bosons would take to themselves. “You, Sar! Shift yer great fat ugly bulk and give the rails a good polish, the Old Man’ll ‘ave somebody’s guts for new garters to see ‘em in that state! Down the ‘atch and fo’ard if you please, young master. There’s a cot swung ready near the Mate’s cabin. Hi, Nerix! Holler the Mate, you slovenly blighter!”

“No cause, Boson.” The smaller of the two private cabins aboard creaked open and a thin, hollow-cheeked face peered out. “Welcome aboard, my Lord Drinian. My name’s Lune, the Mate. Thank you, Aldar. I’ll give our shipmate a tour before the Captain returns.”

His mother, Drinian remembered too well, had spoken many a stern word on the danger of judging a fellow on first sight: most often to her husband, who swore by his mariner’s instincts. Trailing his immediate superior from stem to stern, nodding his acknowledgement of each new shipmate named, he recognised this very clearly as a time to be guarding against the Lord Tirian’s failing, for Lune – softly-spoken, ever glancing over his shoulder as if he expected an assassin at his back – was as far from the usual run of ship’s mates as ever a man could be.

“And this here’s Marton, Drinian,” Lune added as the tour reached its end below the mainmast, where the youngster who had been sweeping deck was busy polishing the lower brass bands around the great trunk. He jabbed a bony finger at the bright buttons of new rank shining on Drinian’s collar and the lad snapped off the smartest of salutes.

“Marton is both deaf and dumb,” Lune explained, forming his words with exaggerated care and gesturing to the boy’s face as he spoke. “But a bright lad, and a fine seaman. Something of a ship’s pet, the Captain says. Can beat anyone to the yardarm can’t you, young man?” 

His flailing hand wavered, index finger pointed straight at the fighting top where a man leaned, alert on watch even in the friendliest port. Marton’s wide black eyes brightened.

He pointed upward. Then at his new shipmate. “A race?” Drinian questioned, miming the hand-over-hand climb of a man running the rigging. Marton grinned. “With your permission, Mate?” 

Lune gave a crisp nod, a restraining hand on the younger contestant’s chest. “On my mark then,” he said, and for the first time Drinian sensed a warmth in the man. The hand withdrew. “Mark!”

Joyously the two boys hurled themselves at the ratlines, scrambling with the agility of young monkeys. Aboard the _Tiger_ Drinian would have staked a week’s grog on outpacing even the liveliest topman, but Marton was his match, and their hands curled around the mainyard’s broad beam together. Perching comfortably, he threw the other boy a teasing salute. 

Marton matched it, letting his legs swing freely. _Down?_ he gestured. Drinian nodded.

It was as his feet found the planking that realisation struck. Not one of the company on deck had turned to watch the newcomer racing the ship’s pet. Even the lookout had averted his eyes. The noisy encouragement; the good-natured mockery he took for granted aboard the _Tiger_ , was wholly lacking.

Drinian had a shrewd suspicion why.

*

“Captain on deck!”

The straggle-haired giant Sar pronounced the words with unexpected precision, and Drinian snapped to attention from his crouch at the signal locker, spinning to the landward side in time to see the Mate a-scurry and the Boson worriedly kicking a loose tail of rope from sight. “As you were, Lune,” a reedy voice wavered. The sideropes shuddered and slowly, sedate as a sovereign before his subjects’ gaze, Captain Kar clambered aboard his small kingdom.

Slim, erect and groomed as neatly as Princess Anelia herself, he paused to survey the silent deck with a narrowed eye. “Lune! Set a man to the poop directly! Can’t you see the grease on the handrail, man!”

“Aye, Cap’n.” Cringing, the Mate signalled to a hovering sailor – _Bastin_ , Drinian reminded himself sternly - almost bowing before his commanding officer’s displeasure. “Sir, we’ve our new Second aboard, if you’d care…”

“Ah, excellent!” Animation brought life to Kar’s narrow features, startling Drinian with the discovery that his new captain was both younger and more handsome than his peevish arrival had implied. “My Lord Drinian, welcome! We hear high praise of you from Anvard.”

“I shall endeavour not to disappoint, Captain.” People stared at the use of his title, and Drinian bit down hard on a wave of sickly nostalgia for Wat, Dorix and the rest. “You have a fine ship, Sir.”

“We run her tight, but you served under Ram. You’ll be used to nothing less.” His covert appraisal matched by a frank one, Drinian dipped his lofty head.

“He was the best of men, Sir.”

“Aye, a very sad loss. Now, your belongings are stowed? Excellent, excellent! We’re to weigh anchor on the evening tide. Lune, we shall allow our shipmate to show off his skills in steering us out of port, I think. You’ll join me for dinner this evening, my Lord? I have been some little while absent from Anvard: I should like to have firsthand account of His Majesty’s wellbeing.”

“Gladly, Captain.” Small hope of being mere Drin on this cruise! 

Kar dismissed him with a nod, returning his dissatisfied attention to the sailor rubbing frenziedly at the poop rails. An oddity, Uncle Dar had said, his truth already amply proven. “Presumin’ you don’t expect yer title on board, _me Lord_?” a faintly mocking voice murmured at his shoulder.

Drinian sniffed. “I’d be grateful if you’ll forget you ever heard it, Boson,” he said mildly, accepting Aldar’s silent invitation to sidle away to the seaward rail. “The Captain’s not often at court then?”

“Not so often as ‘e’d like, you mean! Mother’s kinswoman’s daughter’s wed to that poncin’ ninny of an Admiral that took station from old Dar, they say. Father’s a country gent with land, but lackin’ the title. Yours wouldn’t be an Archenlandish one, I fancy?”

“Narnian, and worth less than a long drink o’ water so long as the kingdom’s crown sits on its present empty head.”

“Worth more’n a month’s grog with our Old Man I’ll wager.” Aldar pulled on his beard with a knowing grin. “Well, many a man’s weakness is what ‘e doesn’t have ‘imself! Keep your head down and your tongue stopped while you take the Cap’n’s measure – that’s my only advice to you, young feller!”

“I’ll do my best to heed it, Boson.” An ally, if a wary one. Amid this skittish, nervy company, that was welcome enough.

*

Feeling every eye on him he took his appointed station at the tiller, hands resting lightly on the wheel’s worn rim. “With your permission, Captain?” he murmured. Kar nodded.

“Boatmen to the oars! Away aloft!”

The men skipped to his commands, the ship abuzz with a familiar bustle of activity that quickened his pulse. Setting his feet square, Drinian narrowed his eyes and peered for’ard, waiting for the last man to settle at his station. “Boson! Man the capstan!”

With a creak and a groan, the men began to turn the huge winch, and the galleon skittered as her anchor oozed free of mud and sand. “Oarsmen, hold her steady!” he bellowed.

No straining men raised the ragged chant of a shanty to speed the work. The only voice was his own, ringing with increasing confidence as _Retribution_ responded to his touch, her oaken hull coming alive at the brush of rolling water. Not all the suspicion emanating from his companions on the poop could quell the smile that broke over Drinian’s lips.

With the gentlest of hands he guided his vessel through the remainder of the fleet at anchor farther out, skirting the sandbars that lay concealed, rising just high enough beneath the waterline to strand the unwary mariner. He forgot Kar and Lune not three feet away, engrossed in his task and in the happiness, raw and potent as the sea air itself, that swirled inside him at the first buck of keel against rolling ocean waves. “Let fall the mains’l!” he hollered, as jubilant as the galleon herself to be free.

With a slap and a swish the huge curtain of sail fell down, men springing across deck to secure it below. “I see the praise of your seamanship’s merited, my Lord,” Kar drawled, pitching his voice to be carried forward along the maindeck. “Set course nor’-nor’-east, hard on the wind, then give her over to Sar. Boson! To your business!”

“Aye, Captain.” The relish in Kar’s tone emphasised the lack in Aldar’s and, puttering down the ladder in his commander’s wake, Drinian identified a certain sinking about the belly that quite dissipated his recent exhilaration. “All hands! All hands to witness punishment!”

“Take your place at the fore, Drinian.” The mere use of his name betrayed Kar’s anticipation. For the briefest of moments _Drinian_ longed to be _my Lord_ again. “’Tis an unfortunate business: a scoundrel hoarding his tot, but discipline must be maintained. Lune! Bring the prisoner!”

“Aye, Cap’n.” From deep within the ship’s bowel the shirtless miscreant was hauled, his mousy head bowed as he was marched through the mute ranks of his crewmates. Deftly, Lune released his chains and lashed hands already offered in readiness toward the poop ladder.

A crisscross of white lines spread like the trails of a demented snail over the knobbling of the man’s spine. “Mate! Read the charge!”

“Aye, Cap’n.” His voice stronger than before – familiarity with the phrases, Drinian guessed, giving him confidence – Lune chanted the accusation of _insouciant drunkenness_ against the seaman Tannick; and the punishment as demanded by the laws of the sea and the command of the King. “Two dozen o’ the best, Boson, and don’t spare your ageing arm!”

Every man bar one drew in a breath, holding himself taut against the swoosh of thin leather against the air. The whip’s long tail arched gracefully, gathering speed until it cracked on an arrow-straight diagonal across Tannick’s bare back.

He grunted, the air swiped cleanly from his lungs. The ship herself seemed to sigh as small droplets of bright blood began to ooze in the weapon’s wake.

The second blow turned the trickle to a steam. By the twelfth, when a sweating Boson switched hands to strike opposite blows, the prisoner’s back more resembled an undercooked slab of bloodied meat, smeared and glistening under the sun’s dying light. Blood stained his mouth too, dribbling from the corners as he struggled in vain to bite down his moans.

Drinian swallowed the coppery tang that touched his own tongue from bites he hardly knew he applied to the inside of his cheeks. Nausea rolled from his stomach to meet it, but he could not look away until Tannick was cut down to flop gasping on the polished deck. “Take him below and tend the wounds,” Kar snarled, spinning on his heel. “Drinian, set the men to clearing this mess.”

“Aye, Captain.” The requisite phrase forced itself out, barely heeded. As Tannick was carried below more tenderly than he had been delivered, Drinian caught Marton’s eye, directing his gaze to the gory puddle on the planking. With a crisp salute the boy bolted.

“Good lad, that one.” Still swiping the sweat from his forehead Aldar loomed on the larboard bow, his instrument of torture neatly curled away in a leather pouch hung from his shoulder. “And lucky! If you can’t speak, you can’t stand accused: aye, or accuse your fellows! First one you’ve witnessed I’m thinkin’? Cap’n Ram wasn’t one for the lash, nor Cap’n Kolin before ‘im in the _Tiger_.”

“You know my prior service then.”

“Ayecap’n’s been cluckin’ like a wet hen – sorry, _the Mate’s_ been tellin’ tales out o’ turn. You’ll get used to the sight soon enough, even if you never come to like it! Normally gets done in the ‘forenoon, but with us bein’ moored up at the time o’ the offence…”

Storm-grey, wary eyes met fathomless dark. Drinian dipped his head. 

So, fond of the lash but not keen that his masters ashore should know it. A tartar obsessed with the tidiness of his decks, unconcerned that his crew were grime-stained and unkempt. _Oddity_ was a kindlier term than he was willing to apply to Captain Kar, on the first day’s experience at least.


	48. Forty-Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The weeks slide into months, and a routine is established. Whether it’s a welcome one or not is another matter entirely…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Elements of Captain Kar are drawn from the sad history of Captain Hugh Pigot of His Britannic Majesty’s frigate Hermione. That one didn’t end well: Pigot and several of his officers were murdered during probably the bloodiest mutiny in British naval history on the night of 21/22 September 1797.

Familiarity bred, if not contempt, then a weary resignation Drinian found much more alarming. The sailor Tannick was an unrepentant drunkard, flogged regularly for hoarding his grog and veering about the deck singing the kind of bawdy ballad wise mariners saved for their shore leaves. A bad apple, but one not notably sweetened by the brutality he knew his crime would attract.

“’s worth it f’r a few hours’ contentment, master,” he slurred when Drinian took his turn at hefting the half-conscious inebriate down to the cramped and stinking brig. “’s the best part o’ the week, an’ I scarce remember it after!”

“Could Lune not ration his tots better? Or one of us ensure he takes it daily?” he wondered, idly casting out a fishing line at the Boson’s side. Aldar snorted. 

“What, and deny the scoundrel his only pleasure?” he scoffed. “Old Tannick knows well enough what ‘e’s about! Spare your pity for Sar, it’s his turn in the morning.”

“Ayecap’n said something about _murmuring_?”

If the use of the crew’s nickname for his immediate superior surprised, Aldar hid it well. “The Old Man caught him and Bastin ‘avin’ a conflab on watch late at night. Took it for granted they were planning to murder all the officers in their beds, as usual. Coo! My throat’d ‘ve been cut a dozen times b’ now if the fellows were as mutinous as _he_ believes.”

“I thought the night watch quieter than the _Tiger’s_.” Something snagged on his line and with a gleeful whoop Drinian reeled in his prize. “Better than another night of salt beef, Boson!” he exclaimed, tossing the wriggling cod from his hook into a waiting bucket. “Blast it! I’ve scales all over my sleeve now.”

“Teach you to gloat over your elders, m’Lord!”

Their laughter was cut short by an ominous shriek from the fo’c’sle. “Mate! Boson! Drinian! At your stations this instant, officers! This wretch plots to kill us all!”

“Another one wi’ murder in mind,” Aldar grumbled, dragging himself upright with a creak of protesting bone. “Stand aside Drinian, don’t want t’ be knocked down in Ayecap’n’s rush! We’re coming Captain, Sir! I’ll ‘ave the blackguard chained in a minute wi’ the other one!”

A knot of nervous seamen had gathered at the ladder, and without a thought Drinian elbowed them aside, aware of Aldar still muttering in his wake. Lune stood beside his Captain, wringing his thin hands while Kar ranted, so overcome with rage his carefully-tied hair had come undone. 

“We’ll ‘ave ‘im off to the brig, Cap’n.” Ever competent, Aldar pried Kar’s fingers one by one from the quivering arm of Nerix, the helmsman of the watch. “If Mate’d be kind enough to take the tiller, Sir? Now, Nerix, what’s to do?”

“It was a course correction Boson, naught more – just a couple o’ points to avoid that blasted sharp rock! I couldn’t know you was on the poop ladder Cap’n…”

“Silence! Drinian, Aldar – take this traitor away!”

“Aye, Sir.” The man was shaking badly enough that a bar of wet soap would have been easier to hold, but between them they manipulated Nerix through the aft hatch and down into the hold’s gloom. “He might calm himself before six bells tomorrow?” Drinian suggested hopefully. Nerix emitted a strangled giggle.

“Not ‘im, Sir! Boson…”

“Not a word, m’ lad!” Aldar chided, kind as an indulgent uncle. “Bear it bravely and I’ll see you proper recompensed after. Come along, stop this whimperin’! It won’t be the first time you’ve felt the touch o’ my fair ‘and, and on this ship, it won’t be the last.”

“Remind me never to seek your sympathy, Boson,” Drinian muttered. To his relief the prisoner’s answering giggle sounded stronger. 

“No sympathy for any soul aboard _Retribution_ ,” he hiccoughed, offering his wrists for the manacles alongside Sar. “And I’ve merry company for my confinement this time! Best not say a word mind. If we’re heard murmuring in ‘ere too, the old tyrant’ll ‘ave us keel-hauled an’ all!”

“We never ‘eard them words, Drinian - did we?”

“What words would those be?” Letting the cell door swing shut behind him, Drinian sagged against the bulkhead and closed his stinging eyes. “I dread to imagine the punishment had he actually run us onto that damnable rock,” he sighed.

“Best not to dwell on it,” Aldar advised, clearly struggling to follow his own wise counsel. “And look lively on the poop, now! If _he_ thinks we’re pityin’ those poor fools…”

*

He turned a blind eye to the extra ladle of grog each thwarted murderer and mutineer received after punishment: suspected Lune did too, or else went in too great a terror of the Captain’s fury to report Boson’s incautious actions. For three days Retribution coasted languidly toward Terebinthia with not a voice being raised in anger.

In the efficient bustle of mariners on duty he sensed no diminishing of the ever-present tension. No snatch of song flowed from the forward lookout’s post or down from the masthead; no idler paused to gossip with a shipmate avidly scrubbing the deck with sandstone block and seawater until it shone. Tannick saved his precious tots; Nerix hobbled to his station still fearful of breaking open fresh wounds, winning the mockery of the more experienced Sar, who continued about his business as if nothing had happened. Only Marton sauntered cheerfully from stem to stern, minding his business and caring naught for any other man’s.

Only he received a friendly cuffing as he danced by a bigger, slower man in the rigging. And only he, so far as Drinian could tell, brought a smile to the Captain’s pinched lips while he capered one evening on the fo’c’sle to music tightly held in his own innocent head. 

On the fourth day, a moment’s inattention caused a drop of tar to be left in the mast’s shadow after a hasty repair to the caulking between planks. “Mutiny!” was the Captain’s cry.

Two dozen lashes applied to the back of Seaman Bastin caused a moment’s whispering in the ranks. For their _insolence_ , Terix and Marin took their places in the brig and Aldar hurried to apply a fresh coat of protective wax to his fraying lash. “Not sure what’ll wear out first – the lash or the arm what wields it,” he growled, forgetful of his position downwind of the poop.

“Boson!”

As meek at the Mate himself Aldar turned, steeling himself like a common seaman for one of his own blows. “Insolence in our officers is not permitted, Aldar. Double watches, beginning directly.”

“Aye, Captain.”

“Half leave for you when next we reach Barwell, dog!”

“Aye, Captain. I apologise, Sir.”

For an instant Drinian tensed, really alarmed by the rage burning in Kar’s pale blue eyes as they followed the downcast sailor’s every trudging step away. “Can’t have the flogger flogged, can he?”

The words leaked from the corner of his mouth. Sar, pushing a lank tangle of black hair from his sunken eyes, risked a careful wag of the head. 

“Just drives ‘is officers to exhaustion, this one – and ‘e’d never lay ‘and in anger on a titled be’ind,” he muttered as Drinian shrugged off the kindly reassurance.

“I’m more concerned he’d ask his Second Mate to apply the lash to Aldar’s crooked back,” he retorted. Sar’s enormous bulk heaved, even as it was deliberately angled away from his.

*

The next punishment (to more than just Drinian’s relief) was delayed by the sight of a Terebinthian schooner tacking toward them from her home base, the warning hail sending every man to his weapon before Kar could even raise his voice. For the first time Drinian heard _Retribution’s_ decks buzz with an excitement and energy he recognised.

Even Lune bawled a blasphemy at the approaching vessel that Topasio of the _Tiger_ could hardly have bettered, all without a worried glance aside to see how the sign of independence was received by his commander.

Given the enthusiasm with which Kar was berating his opposite number, hanging bodily over the taffrail with sword swinging, Drinian suspected the Mate had little enough to wring his bony hands for this time. 

The Captain led his boarding party with a hearty howl, puce of face as he slashed through the pirate melee. Drinian was taken aback to identify the utter certainty of a warrior born in Kar with sword in hand, his courage as unselfconscious and easy as ever Captain Ram’s had been.

“To me, lads!” he bellowed, forcing his way into the heaving press of a terrifying enemy without a glance behind to ensure their obedience, even as Drinian and Aldar struggled to match his pace. “We’ll hang every mother’s son of ‘em from the yardarm before suppertime! In the name o’ the King, to me!”

“Pity we couldn’t, neither,” Bastin declared breathlessly fifteen minutes later, swabbing the worst of the bloodstains from the schooner’s filthy decks while Nerix, Sar and Marton, cheerfully indifferent to the abuse being hurled his way, marshalled their captives together on the fo’c’sle. “Call ‘emselves _the King’s Fleet_ , that bunch o’ scurvy whoresons? Even our pressgangs wouldn’t touch them scum!”

Lune was placed in command of a small crew and instructed to steer the confiscated vessel into the nearest safe port, his chosen five not troubling to hide their smirks as they departed for the overnight run into Galamaia. “Can open me mouth without fear for a few hours,” Sar muttered, slapping Drinian cordially on the shoulder as he held the grappling chain, allowing the fortunate men to clamber over _Retribution’s_ side. “Lion alone knows what I’ll find t’ say!”

In Lune’s absence, the Second Mate took station beside his Captain at the call to witness punishment, keeping his eyes on the well-thumbed page of the Fleet Code as he read. He rapped out the phrases, familiar by now, of the charge and punishment against the prisoners, focussed on the words to distract himself from the sickly feeling in the pit of his stomach that was never present in storm or enemy action. 

Violence from them he expected, and could fight. This, carelessly delivered from his own side, he knew not how to answer.

*

In squalls and flat calm alike Kar showed himself to be a competent, if unexceptional, seaman, and every bout of bloody action confirmed Drinian’s initial impression of his fearlessness as a soldier. In his rare good tempers, he could show flashes of humour. Even of generosity.

Marton, unable to plot or conspire, received the Captain’s own cloak for protection at the fighting top in rough weather. “A sad pity he’s so impaired,” Kar commented, pausing beside the wheel to check their heading one cool evening. “Were he but hale he’d be a rival even for your seamanship, young man!”

“No doubting it, Sir.” Subtly straightening his wrinkled jerkin, Drinian shifted to allow his commander room. Kar smiled faintly. 

“You’ll come with me to the warehouse when we anchor off Galamaia tomorrow? Usually I should take Boson, but given his recent _misconduct_ …”

“Aye, Captain.” Echoing the Mate was the safest course, though Drinian cringed from the words every time. Had Lune once longed to speak up? Had he ever dared defend his unfortunate comrades? 

Perhaps his craven obsequiousness was wisdom bitterly earned, not the feeble cowardice implied in the scornful epithet by which he was known among the crew. “It has been some time since I was last in Galma, Sir.”

“I doubt you’ll see improvement, and those storemasters are greater knaves even than Barwell’s, but for so long as their Duke’s our ally we hold the whip hand. Now, take to your cot, my Lord Drinian, and I’ll manage the night watch until Boson’s next turn. I’ll need your wits as sharp as the starboard tack into harbour if we’re to berate those dullards on shore in the morning!”

*

As it transpired, little argument was needed to supply all of Retribution’s wants, the blustering quartermasters of Galamaia proving no match for the silver tongue and subtle mind Kar wielded like a bloodied cutlass against them. “A flagon of good wine to toast our success, I think,” the Captain decided, rubbing his hands. “They keep a fine Archenlandish vintage along the quay – join me?”

“Thank you, Sir.” Startled beyond a ready excuse, Drinian dropped into the older man’s shadow, turning this new piece of Kar’s character in his mind for a fit against the puzzle he already knew it to be. “The harbour’s fairly crowded with merchants today. I’ve never seen it so busy!”

“The Ducal Fair takes place next week. Attracts traders from as far as Tashbaan, and their doxies to boot.” Flinging himself onto an empty bench outside one of the quieter tavern doors, Kar contemplated his perfectly polished boots with satisfaction. “They’ve even cleaned these filthy streets in preparation.”

“I assumed that was in our honour, Sir!”

“They’ll honour our coin as well as any merchantman’s, I daresay. You there! Innkeeper! A flagon of your best Westerwood for the young gentleman and myself!”

“At once, Cap’n!” 

Kar smirked at the plump tavern-keeper’s back as it disappeared through his establishment’s door. “Now there’s a cry to cheer a captain’s heart. None of the mumbling or the grumbling we hear afloat, just a cheerful fellow quick to do our bidding! If all our tars were such men…”

“Yours is as efficient a ship as His Majesty boasts, Sir,” Drinian tried carefully. Kar shook his immaculate head.

“A sad reflection on the rest of them! There’s two more o’ the villains to be punished in the morning: Bastin and Nerix, conspiring together over the mess table.”

“I sit at the next mess, Captain. I never heard…”

“I should as soon not discipline a man of _rank_ , my Lord: so I’ll overlook your slackness this once, knowing it a rarity.” Kar’s reedy tones took on a deeper note, one that made every fine hair on Drinian’s body prickle. “Pay heed to the rabble’s whisperings in future mind, else I shall _have_ to act! _Vigilance_ in all things – that’s what keeps a man-o’-war afloat! Ah, landlord, thank you. No, we shall trouble you no longer! We can pour for ourselves eh, my Lord?”


	49. Forty-Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's no escape from Kar's tyranny for the men of the galleon Retribution. Or is there?

Her hold resupplied, _Retribution_ inched from her mooring at the harbour’s heart on the evening’s flood tide. Kar’s hand was steady on the tiller, his voice controlled in barking out his commands, but his slitted gaze flitted every second sentence from the activities of his crew to junior officer stationed close at the poop ladder. 

Not, the Second Mate considered, that the men needed watching. For a crew held permanently on the brink of murderous rebellion, their handling of a difficult manoeuvre was little short of astonishing.

That no man had lifted a hand in his own defence in the three years since Kar had assumed command was the only wonder Drinian knew to surpass it. 

“With ‘im being connected to the Admiral and the court, the first fellow that raised a voice - still less a fist – might find ‘imself swung from the yardarm before all o’ Barwell,” Aldar reminded him gloomily at the dawn change of watch. “He’s a solid sailor...”

“Nervy.” Those worried glances and the slight gnawing on a thin bottom lip had betrayed it so thoroughly Drinian was amazed he had never recognised it before. “And nothing like so confident of his seamanship as he’d have us to believe, I’ll wager.”

Aldar nodded sagely. “Aye, fancied you’d seen ‘im watching you! Got command young as a favour to the mother’s kin: or so he seems to think. A sad waste of a good seaman _and_ ‘is crew, if you ask me – not that anyone ever does! You know what Nerix was guilty of saying?”

Drinian shook his head. “That the barrel it came aboard in’d be easier to chew than the mutton,” Aldar reported under his breath. “And Bastin laughed…”

“As would we all!” A joke between friends turned into proof of treasonous intent. _Miraz himself could find treason and conspiracy no more easily than Captain Kar._ “A dozen, I hear?”

“Aye, lucky for them ‘e was in a good mood comin’ back from the warehouses.” The same offence on another day might earn double the sanction for each man, as both officers knew too well. “Morning, Captain. Wind’s running a mite strong today, Sir.”

“Indeed Aldar, but all the better to re-join our comrades on the blockade.” Whether the previous afternoon’s wine or the knowledge no man could have faulted his handling of his ship quitting port deserved the credit, Kar appeared more tranquil than Drinian had ever seen him. “Hold the men from scrubbing the maindeck if you please, Drinian. It can be done this evening, once punishment’s past.”

“Aye, Captain.” 

“Beggar still enjoys it too much, mind,” his friend mumbled, earning himself a swift jab to the ribs in warning. “Hark to the sailmen, they’re luffin’ up a storm! Easy there, you miserable lubbers, that sail’s not six months old! Shred ‘er now an’ I’ll shred your scurvy ‘ides for the patches meself!”

*

The two unfortunates bore their sufferings with a stoicism much admired by their fellows, who ambled away in silence immediately the gruesome business was done. A gesture to Marton was sufficient to bring the lad scampering with buckets, mops and sandstone blocks, and for the want of any better activity Drinian dropped to his knees to give a hand, his leaden spirits lifted by the mute’s ready smile. One creature at least knew a true mariner’s content aboard the unhappy ship _Retribution_.

When the Captain swore a violent oath that prophesied the worst for the unfortunate in his line of sight, every other man froze. Marton continued his serene scrubbing until the motion of the air stirred by his neighbour’s violent lurch upright struck his cheek. As a stream of shrill curses that made even Sar blench tumbled down the poop ladder, Drinian found himself almost envying his disadvantaged friend.

“Murder! Mutiny and murder!” A familiar refrain interrupted the cussing and released the invisible bonds that had clamped every leg. With a sigh and a clatter of feet, every man available surged the galleon’s length, avid to see the show.

His fingers twisting the lobe tight enough to turn it livid red, Kar had wrinkled Warin, the oldest seaman aboard, by the ear. At their feet lay a curled length of tattered rope, mere inches from the ladder’s top rung. “A snare to send me to my death, my lads!” Kar screamed, his watery eyes bulging. 

“Quite mad,” muttered a bolder man than the Second Mate. Heedless of its owner’s name, Drinian directed a swift kick back toward it. 

“What? Do you all stand and gawp, this man is caught in the very act of mutinous murder! You – you, Drinian! Do your duty and seize this treacherous dog!”

“I jus’ dropped it, Cap’n, me fingers is greased fr’m the tallow y’ see!” His features pinching with pain, Warin made no attempt to free himself from the slighter man’s grip, too stunned to do more than whimper. 

“Liar!” Attempts to conciliate the enraged Captain only inflamed him, as tars more hardened to his wrath than Warin knew well. “Drinian! Second Mate! Throw this conniving cur in the brig directly!”

“Aye, Captain.” The scrum of humanity around him parted. Reluctantly, Drinian set his foot on the stout ladder.

“Hesitancy!” Kar shrieked wrenching his captive’s ear harder in lunging to point an accusatory finger. “I’ll have no malingering from any man on my ship, not even an officer, d’ you hear? Lune! Double watches for the Second Mate! I’ll see you too damned exhausted to sympathise with this traitorous scum! Take this man away!”

“Aye, Captain.” Clipped formality might be taken as insolence but anything else, Drinian guessed, would seem infinitely worse. Gently he grasped the quivering Warin by the shoulder, easing him toward the hatch. Kar’s voice, still wavering and raw, floated after them into the ship’s gut.

“And there see the price of my clemency, you laggardly knaves! That scoundrel had my favour, and this is how he thanks me! With a murderous mind and a conspirator’s heart! Enough of leniency!”

Warin whimpered again. “You’ve felt the Boson’s light hand less than most,” Drinian reminded him, accurately assessing what passed in the Captain’s deranged mind for mercy. The old sailor’s head twitched. 

“Now you’re t’ be punished too, m’Lord, and it’s…”

“Long overdue my turn.” Instinct brought an irritable rebuttal of the landward title to his tongue, but Drinian forced it resolutely back, patting his prisoner’s shoulder as he unlocked the overused brig. “I had fair warning on Galma it was coming Warin, don’t fret for me! I’ll speak to Boson on your account – a bit o’ carelessness is no crime, and he knows how to lay on a careful stroke by now. Sit quietly now. I’ll bring your rations once the Old Man’s settled down.”

“Thank ‘ee, Sir.” Cringing into a ball, Warin meekly offered up his wrists to the manacles. With a sigh Drinian snapped them into place, squared his shoulders and readied himself to face his own sentence.

*

“All hands to witness punishment! All hands to witness punishment!”

Eight hours’ duty with four hours’ sleep followed by another eight on a windswept deck, Drinian discovered as he trudged to his appointed station, failed entirely to numb a man to the horror those words aroused. He yanked his heavily waxed cloak tighter around his shoulders, catching the Boson’s eye as Aldar trod his well-worn path, the lash trailing in his wake. Twisting his neck to conceal it from the shuffling sailors already clustered at the foot of the aft ladder, the older man winked.

“Mate! Read the charge to the prisoner! And be quick to your work Boson, these damnable squalls…”

As if in answer to the Captain’s summons, a great gust of wind and rain screamed directly across _Retribution’s_ decks. The galleon soared on the wave’s crest, almost vertical for an instant as her snarling prow figure stared into the ocean’s murky depths.

Something groaned. A thunderous cracking came from the heavens themselves, and as his head jerked back Drinian was in time to watch a great pale rent rip across the heart of the weathered mainyard, cleaving the immense tree trunk clean in two. 

“ _Down!_ ” he hollered as the first ropes began to fray, hurling himself hard a-port and knocking three men like gigantic dominoes into the scuppers in the process.

The galleon shuddered, the retching sound of shearing timber reverberating in shivers to the very base of her keel. Gracefully, apparently slowly to Drinian’s horrified eyes, the heavy length of Archenlandish pine tore through the rigging to hit the maindeck with an awful crunch, all but braining the Captain where he stood.

The silence that descended in its wake was, Drinian was certain, the most terrifying thing he had ever heard. His heart thumping into the wall of his chest, he crawled from beneath a splinter-strewn spider’s web of tattered ropework, absently offering a hand to haul the bewildered Marton up at his side. 

Almost without realising it he identified three things horribly wrong: a great gash down the heart of the mainsail; the shattered yard and broken mast lying diagonal across a hideously scarred deck; and the stricken face of their commander, his parted lips producing no more sound than the mute boy pressing himself in terror against Drinian’s side, no matter how insistently they moved.

“Any man injured?” Lune’s timid question broke the spell and all around the battered galleon men began to murmur and stir, shaking off their paralysis and moving unbidden to attack the nearest debris. “Captain, what’s to be done, Sir? Captain?”

Jagged shards of pale yellow from the yard’s broken heart dripping from his shoulder-length brown hair and a scratch down his cheek beginning to ooze a scarlet stream, Kar waggled his head, utterly impotent. “Let’s get the Cap’n below, Mate,” Aldar called out, unchaining his cowering prisoner without awaiting any order. “He’s not well, Sir – see how ‘e’s shivering! Drinian, give a hand lad, before ‘is legs give way and ‘e fair falls down that damn’ ladder!”

Someone snorted. Another man yelped. _Shock_ , Drinian decided, feeling its clammy tendrils swaying out from the pit of his clenched stomach. Affecting every man in his own way, and none more than the Captain himself: still gaping, open-mouthed and helpless as his officers clambered through ruined rigging and up the broken ladder toward him.

Wary as if he approached a wounded bear, Aldar extended a gnarled hand. “Come below, Cap’n” he coaxed, stiffening for a blow that never came as his fingertip brushed the fine grey wool of Kar’s once-pristine tunic. “You’ll be all right, Sir. We’ll get that cut cleaned out, and Mate here’ll…”

A low wailing sound emerged from Kar’s constricted throat: the sound of an animal in pain that deepened as he collapsed, a shuddering, sobbing stain of tawny and grey to smear the ruined deck.

Their eyes met. In unspoken accord and with more urgency than care, Aldar and Drinian bent to scoop the jibbering remnant of humanity under its armpits, bodily heaving their commander through the wreckage and beyond the aft hatch as he dangled like a doll, broken fragments of sound bubbling over his tongue. “Cracked,” the Boson announced breathlessly, letting Kar’s feet drag while Drinian barged the cabin door with his shoulder, almost staggering under the boneless weight of its occupant. “Always like to ‘appen, I daresay! Never as strong-nerved as ‘e wanted, poor blighter.”

“Treason! Mutiny! _Mamma!_ ”

Clawing fingers curled into the Boson’s torn jerkin. “Think ‘e means me?” Aldar joked, flicking an uncomfortable glance past their demented patient. Drinian managed a watery grin.

“You’re the elder, not I! If we heave him into the cot…”

“Best we can do, without a lunatic’s jacket aboard.” The words were pragmatic, but kinder, Drinian considered, than Kar had earned from any of the caged rats he called his crew. “Right-oh, on my word. _Heave!_ ”

Kar threshed in its confines, making the crude box swing violently and his two attendants leap back hard enough to hit the bulkhead. “Mamma!” he wailed piteously, clutching at his blankets. “Make them go away, Mamma!”

“We ought not be seeing him like this,” Drinian muttered, backing toward the door with lofty head dipped as much to avoid the sight of his commander’s raving as to dodge an especially low crossbeam. Aldar’s elbow connected with his midriff. “Ow!”

“Ship’s the Mate’s until – _unless_ – the Cap’n regains ‘is wits,” he said, wincing against another desperate wail. “He’s safe enough: and we’re needed on deck! If Lune’s got ‘is wits about ‘im we’ll be riggin’ the bowsprit as a makeshift masthead and makin’ the best speed home we can muster. Mate! Hi, Lune! Cap’n’s safe as we can make ‘im – and mad as a wet ‘en with a fox in the coop. What’s to be done wi’ this mess, Sir?”


	50. Forty-Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kar’s connections aren’t going to like the truth coming out. The wise old owl of Anvard understands this, and knows exactly where to look for an unvarnished account of events...

The long pull back to Barwell was subdued. Even Tannick’s incorrigible habits fell into abeyance in the presence of a raving madman, whose ghostly wails echoed from stern to stern every too-quiet night. Their reception ashore was sombre, with every man averting his eye from the gangplank while, strapped and borne in a litter for his own protection, the hollow-eyed remnant of Captain Kar was tenderly carried from his shattered ship.

The galleon’s log and muster books were rushed to the Admiral’s residence. Lune, Aldar and Drinian himself were summoned to give account of events; and Lord Gurin even lowered his powered and ruffled self so far as to have Nerix, Sar and Warin called to his elegant parlour, wincing delicately as they pawed his fine furnishings and glugged his best wine. 

“Blowed if I know why ‘e’s bothering, mind,” Boson grumbled, deftly splicing a length of newly-tarred rope from the great coil squatting between them close to the entryport. “Not as if he’ll declare the Old Man a poor benighted crack-pate that shouldn’t have ‘ad charge of a river barge, is it? His own wife’s mother’s kin? ‘Twill all be the fault o’ the rough insolent tars, you’ll see!”

“Deserved every stroke o’ the lash ever laid Boson, you know that.” Sar’s meat-platter palms spun lightly, knotting his portion of the replacement rig with unlooked-for grace. “By the Lion’s Tail, do we not all know the Cap’n’s mother’s kin are distant relations of Anvard? I ‘eard ‘im bragging of it t’ Ayecap’n, back when I was first dragged aboard.”

“Is that so?” His fingers stilling on the knot he worked, Drinian bit down hard on the curse that rolled too readily into his throat. _How long until the summons arrives?_

*

It took longer than he anticipated, but on the fifth afternoon he trotted between the castle’s wide-opened gates, vaulting lightly down to surrender his mount to a tow-headed scurrying ostler. Pennants streamed from every turret, the royal banner of the realm dancing in a true sailor’s breeze and, absently dusting his damp hands against the crisp linen of his jet-black hose, Drinian found himself yearning for the roll of a vessel in place of the dusty firmness of landlocked ground beneath his boots.

“My Lord of Etinsmere, bid welcome!” The drooping of Hastin’s lower lip arrested by a smile, the old courtier hobbled from the porch’s shadow. “The King bids me take you to him directly – you, Saria, run to the kitchen! Have refreshment sent to His Majesty’s parlour directly. You must have ridden hard to reach Anvard so early, my Lord.”

“The King’s messenger reached us at dusk, so there was ample time to procure a horse and an early breakfast.” And to hear lurid reports being whispered of _Retribution’s_ bloodstained voyages, though Drinian knew better than to say so in the middle of the royal courtyard. 

The Deputy Chamberlain creaked his creased features into a show of benevolence. “His Majesty will be gratified, my Lord. The tales that have reached us of your ship’s misfortunes…”

“Quite curdle the blood!” hallooed another voice from the head of the castle’s main stair. Down its broad length careered the heir himself, skidding to a halt at the foot with a large hand thrust out to steady himself against the first shoulder available: Drinian’s fortunately, else both Prince Corin and the ancient household official might have landed in an undignified heap. “Why, the tales of floggings and keel-haulings we’ve heard! Anelia! Sister, come quickly! Our friend’s handsome face is unscarred, though for his back I not dare wager!”

“No officer of Archenland would lay the lash on my Lord of Etinsmere Corin, _must_ you be such a squalling hen?” Glimmering in swooshes of turquoise and gold, Princess Anelia glided from her apartments to the west of the main doors and flashed a grin beyond the offender to his friend. “’Tis a relief all the same to see you whole and unmarked, Drinian! I shan’t believe half the tarradiddle parroted in the halls until I hear it from _your_ lips, but still… my Lord Hastin perhaps you should escort our guest to the King’s chambers? 

“ _No_ , Corin! Papa wants to speak with Drinian urgently. _We_ shall take him captive after and hear _everything!_ If you’ll be so kind as to indulge us, my Lord?”

“For the pleasure of Your Highnesses…” He swept an extravagant bow, fighting off his first real laugh in ages with a painful effort. Anelia fluttered her long hands.

“Such _gallantry!_ Come, brother! Send word to us when you’re done with Father, Drinian.”

Merriment dissolved with the sweet fragrance of her perfume. Taking a deep breath, Drinian raised a brow to his elderly escort. “It were best done quickly, I daresay,” he muttered. Hastin, ever the courtier, pretended not to hear.

“My good Lord Drinian, glad am I to see you looking so well!” King Nain hovered at the entrance to his first-floor suite of private rooms, wringing his hands as fretfully as Ayecap’n ever had. “Come, come, we shan’t be troubled here! You’ll linger as our guest a few days, of course? An ordeal indeed you’ve suffered since last we had this pleasure! Tell me – _Conspiracy Kar_ as I hear him called… was he truly _sane but sorely tried_ , as my Lord Admiral (and his wife) tell me?”

Letting himself be pressed into a comfortable armchair, Drinian considered the troublesome question with brows knit and head cocked. “On your honour as an Etinsmere,” his host instructed sternly. Against his will, a bark of twisted laughter broke free.

“My honour as a man o’ your fleet’s worth more, Sire!” he blurted. Nain bit his lip, easing into the cushioned chair on the other side of the banked fire.

“Then occupation makes your exile no more bearable,” he said sadly. “Still, yours will always remain a noble title, and you do it credit. Gurin tries to tell me Kar’s rough handling of his men is _quite normal, Sire_ but by the Lion your old friend Dorix says otherwise! I’m assured by the same source that there’s hope yet of the man regaining his wits, yet by all other accounts, the sun exchanging her station with the moon’s more likely.”

“I never saw a flogging until I boarded _Retribution_ , Sire.” Naught for it but candour, and if his Etinsmere blood stood for anything, it was surely that. As succinctly as possible Drinian laid out the full sorry tale of imagined mutinies and murderings, resolutely clipping any shade of colour from the words. “And then when the mainyard came down within an inch of him - the closest to death he ever came on his own ship, and by pure accident - I daresay, with his nerves already shredded worse than the mains’l…”

“It broke the last thread of his reason. I see.”

That he did, so clearly, redoubled Drinian’s admiration for the shrewd and experienced monarch before him. “A sad end to the ignoble career of a man unwisely promoted beyond his levels, by the sound of it. A capable seaman, you said?”

“And as brave a fighting sailor as I ever saw,” Drinian affirmed frankly. “As a wise captain’s mate, he might do well enough. Unchecked, haunted by doubt in his own merits...”

“He fell back on the terror of the lash.” Nain patted down his grizzled fox’s mane and sat back, taking a slow sip of watered wine. “The fault’s as much mine as his own, I daresay. It was I granted command to a man unfitted for it.”

“You were hardly to know, Sire!” Drinian protested. Nain’s head waggled loosely.

“As King, is it not my duty to know? Your crewmates… drunkards, villains and cowards, are they?”

“Our share o’ the first.” Tannick’s loose-lipped grin formed in his mind, enough to make the strongest stomach sicken. “But a more loyal company never sailed. They had cause for mutiny if any crew ever had, yet never a word of it spoken.”

“Fortunate for them they have _some_ officers deserving of such patriotic obedience! My Lord Gurin wishes the matter quickly closed.”

_And never mentioned in proper company again_ , Drinian thought grimly. “And the good name of an abused company tarnished?” he grated. The King raised a pacifying hand.

“And a fine vessel returned with all good speed to her rightful business,” he corrected, rising to his unprepossessing best height. Though he towered over the older man Drinian felt himself uncharacteristically cowed, almost shy in the presence of unfettered majesty. “Master Kar will be cared for at Our expense so long as his derangement demands it, but his failings as a captain cannot be concealed. The Mate, this Lune, will assume command, and you’ll sail as his second. The men know and trust you both. Who better to restore right order to that poor, unfortunate ship?”

*

In the midst of Anvard’s chattering society, he held doubt to himself. Trusting his friends’ royalty to shield him from the stares and the whispers of the curious, he accepted their every invitation to ride, walk and fence, finding solace in Corin’s open good humour and the sly quick wit of his sister. “You’re still determined to return to the sea, I suppose,” she said on the third day, drawing him aside from the round table in the centre of Great Hall where Corin presided over a boisterous card game. His shoulders rolled.

“What else have I to do?” he challenged, accepting the unspoken invitation of her minute gesture and stepping aside, allowing her to lead him toward the laden refreshment table at the far end of the room. People glanced up, caught their princess’s imperious eye, and looked hastily back to their games. “Oh, I’m paid every courtesy my empty title demands Anelia, but without the sea, what am I? Let me be active, not one o’ these primped, pointless simperers languishing at royalty’s lightest look!”

“ _Royalty_ ought to be offended by such comments.”

“But a friend won’t take umbrage at truth?”

Her hand covered his in the comfit bowl. “And a Princess surrounded by those very simperers must be glad of any escape that’s offered,” she sighed. “You’re still determined you shan’t belong to Archenland? Your Aunt…”

“Still can’t, though she’s called it home the better part of thirty years.” Lady Westerwood stood near a group of laughing ladies, her husband’s cousin Marna among them: elegant head tilted, apparently of their party yet isolated, the turn of her cheek from the rest barely perceptible. “Look at her, Anelia! No matter how she tries, she must be _the foreigner_. At sea…”

“Drin the sailor is among equals as my Lord of Etinsmere cannot be.” Her fingers tightened around his, a gesture of solidarity that touched him more than Drinian entirely liked. “You’ll not care for pity, but know at least you’re understood! In its way, my place as the King’s daughter…”

“Above nobility of the realm, yet with no other company.” Slowly turning his hand, Drinian returned the pressure – and, he hoped, the solace – she gave. “Your position’s more to be pitied than mine. I do have some escape!”

“Save my father, Corin and yourself, there’s not a creature in the castle even dares use my name,” she told him gloomily. Drinian’s lips twitched.

“Then my position has one boon, Madam,” he drawled, pleased to see her startled into an inelegant cackle. “Being not of your court, I’m not constrained by the obedience of a future subject, and - oh hang it! Enemy approaching, four points off the starboard bow.”

To his delight she glanced precisely to the point he named. “You shall make a navigator of me yet, my Lord!” she fluted, sliding her hand from his under the cover of her flowing sleeve. “Oh, Lady Aneta, _do_ take some of these sweetmeats, they truly are delicious! I see the Lord Arn approaching too: perhaps you might be kind enough to take some to him - with my compliments and my Lord of Etinsmere’s, as we seem to have been monopolising them.”

_Neatly done_ , he approved with the arch of a thick ebony brow. _A pleasure_ , her faint smile answered. With a graceful bow she matched in a dipping curtsy he stepped back from the tables, letting the melee of players rising from their cards engulf him.  
Another two days and he would be free. 

Anelia, he knew beyond doubt, would envy him.


	51. Fifty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He thought things were bad under Captain Kar. Drinian's opinion of his old commander is about to be improved in the worst possible way.

Six weeks later he was pining for the stuffy halls and repetitive conversation of the castle. “For the love o’ the Lion, Captain! Tannick’s an habitual drunkard who well knows the regulation he flouts!” he exclaimed for the fourth time since _Retribution_ had weighed anchor, wrenching the well-worn signet around his finger. “Wink at his misconduct and another man will follow!”

“Mate’s right, Cap’n.” Aldar had aged a year in a matter of weeks, although his forearms grew flabby for want of the lash’s swish. From the fo’c’sle the hoarse caw of the offender’s song drifted: _Said Mistress Sal to her Sailor_ , Drinian recognised with a sigh, a choice made with an inebriate’s cunning to offend the sensibilities of the prim old dame in command. “Throw ‘im in the brig ‘til morning if you choose, but unless the fellows see punishment for incorrigible insolence, they’ll think it safe to follow.”

“Not all the strokes taken at your hand have prevented Tannick hoarding his grog, Boson.”

“And nor will a dozen more,” Aldar agreed promptly. “Well do we all know the miserable sot’s beyond reform! ‘Tis as example to the rest he worries me.”

“Us,” Drinian amended sharply. “Have each man take his tot from my hand, Sir! Make ‘em stand and glug it before witnesses like the sullen knaves they are!”

“Warin held back his ration last night,” Aldar chimed in, small enough that he could pass into the Captain’s cabin without dipping his silvery head. Drinian was only too glad to drop his onyx one, still unable to enter Captain Lune’s quarters without the lunatic wails of its previous occupant tickling his ears. “Let the rot once set in, Cap’n, and the old girl’s lost!”

“No tar loses his senses on two nights’ grog, Boson.” Languid and lumbering, the new Second Mate shuffled in his superior’s wake, crumpling onto the edge of the Captain’s own stool. Drinian opened his mouth to protest the impertinence, only to snap it shut again under Lune’s beseeching look. “Tannick is one man, Sir. Every company has his like.”

“Aye, and a wise captain has ‘im the by neck inside a week!” Less restrained, Aldar kicked at the stool’s leg. “What’s your remedy, Lorin? _One_ mute aboard we can manage…”

“Marton’s the best topman in the fleet!” Drinian protested.

“And well do I know it, but an officer needs an iron lung like yours, Mate, to keep the rabble in check.” Throwing up his hands, Aldar gave way to the inevitable with the worst grace he could muster. “Aye, have it your way Sir and we’ll _Aye, Cap’n_ your folly wi’ the best of them! Throw Tannick in the brig ‘til dawn and tell ‘is mates ‘tis punishment fit for the crime. Then break down the bulkheads and make the brig bigger, for you’ll have a dozen in there a day before we sight Terebinthia!”

“Drinian, see our miscreant confined. And pass word below deck that the next man to be caught hoarding will face sterner penalty.”

“The loss of his ration, Sir?” 

Lune’s full, flabby lips pursed. “Or some such sanction,” he mumbled, quite incapable of meeting his deputy’s eye.

“Of grog, or water?” Aldar grunted, positively glowering across the cabin. Drinian kicked his ankle hard. “Meanin’ no insubordination, Cap’n.”

When Lune accepted the insincere qualification with an eager head-wag, the Mate wondered if his kick had not been aimed the wrong way. “Lend a hand with our slippery drunkard?” he muttered, shoving a recalcitrant Boson through the aft hatch before him. Aldar growled.

“Only if you’re planning to ‘andle ‘im as rough as you do your mates! I spoke right, and you know it!”

“Aye, and so does Lune. Lorin you have the watch, I believe?”

“Aye, Mate.” Bulbous brown eyes followed their every move down to the maindeck. Flabby jowls wobbled as the wisp of a lugubrious voice hung in their wake. “ _Kindness will redeem the leavings of the lash_ , Captain says!”

“Aye, or see ‘is throat cut in the middle o’ the night by a drunken nitwit!”

“Enough, Aldar.” Their orders were foolhardy, but follow them they must. Swinging himself up the for’ard ladder Drinian lunged, grabbing the flailing arm of the capering singer in a steely clasp. “Enough o’ that, you scurvy knave!” he roared, rocked back by the pungent rawness of liquor that hung on the malcontent’s every breath. “Boson, draw a pail of water up over the side. Let’s see if a good cold splash o’ salt won’t sober this wretch up sooner!”

“Aye, Sir.” With a wicked cackle Aldar raced to grab a wooden bucket from the starboard rail, making enough noise to draw every eye on deck to his activities. “Hold the croakin’ sot’s ‘ead in it meself if you’ll let me!”

“Just a dousing, Boson.” People were grinning, and as he heaved his hapless captive toward the hatch Drinian was confident his uncomfortable addition to Tannick’s regular confinement would be the talk of the ship come dawn. It might even deter Warin – notorious for his complaints against cold – from matching his messmate’s offence in future.

*

Lune offered no rebuke, and Lorin’s squashed features contorted more at its lack than at the innovation itself. When he stumbled back onto duty after the breakfast dishes were cleared, Tannick showed neither resentment nor remorse. “Mite cold it were, Mate,” he chortled, accepting the finger-numbing work of scrubbing deck at Drinian’s hand without complaint. “Clears a feller’s ‘ead faster ‘n the slap of a landlord’s daughter!”

“You’d know about that, yer dissolute rogue!” yelled Sar from halfway up the rigging. Drinian cocked his head.

“And you would not?” he enquired, all innocence. Laughter echoed around the _Retribution._

Tannick groaned, rubbing his temples. “Softer lads, I’m a-sufferin’!” he moaned.

“Good. Topmen, look to the south - those clouds are rolling in too fast for my liking. Reef and furl! Lorin, take station with the helmsman, he’ll need your arm in a minute! Boson, call Captain, we’ll need his orders to the tiller when she strikes.”

“Aye, Sir!” Aldar, lurched for the hatch as every man bar the lumbering Lorin raced to his appointed station. Grabbing the taffrail Drinian planted his feet apart, bracing himself for the squall’s first assault. 

Not all the men, he noted sourly, took the same precaution.

The dark grey banks of cloud tore over them, and the galleon lurched on the whipping wind, her prow thrown violently even with Lorin’s weight hurled with the helmsman’s in the effort to hold a true course. “Captain!” he howled, lunging with a steady hand as Lune staggered his way across the poop. “We’ll not hold her, Sir! What heading?”

“I – hold the best you can?” Lune offered vainly, making himself useful at least in adding his light weight to the wheel fighting to wrench itself free of human hand. “Another point to port? Drinian!”

“Aye, Captain.” Less a summons than an appeal he thought, inching his way along the rail. _Not merely afraid of the lash, but of giving an order as well!_

It was, he decided, his clamber up the poop ladder rendered ungainly by the spray drenching his sensibly stout tunic and hose, enough to make a man long for the tyrannical false confidence of Conspiracy Kar.

*

Six nights later, with the ship hove-to in sight of Port Terebinthia, he heard it. The unmistakable ill-harmony of three drunken sailors serenading their mates from the base of the prow.

Tannick, of course. Warin, undeterred by the threat of cold water. And Bastin, his tall shadow swaying as every officer aboard raced to the commotion, grog cup still in hand as he roared out the age-old praise of _The Gallant Girls Of Galamaia._

“Toss them in the brig!” Hands a-wringing and nightshirt a-flap, Captain Lune dodged first one unsteady carouser then the next, trusting to his officers’ obedience as he dared not his men’s. “Drinian – half rations for these villains! Extra duty! I will _not_ have drunken debauchery aboard this ship!”

“Mite late t’ stop it – Ayecap’n,” Bastin slurred, sagging blearily in the crook of the Second Mate’s arm. Lorin flinched.

“How many nights’ worth have you hoarded, blackguard!” he yelped, directing his free hand into the man’s exposed belly with unexpected expertise. “Mate – your dash o’ salt water….”

“In place of their fresh ration? Aye, fit punishment!” Wrestling Tannick down the ladders, Drinian chose to hear the Boson’s bark of approval over the Captain’s protesting squeal. “You there, Sar! Draw up a bucket o’ the finest and bring it to the brig! With your permission, Sir…”

Before Lune could gather himself the straggled-haired seaman was on his way to the rail with pail in hand. “The lash’d work better, for two o’ the devils at least!” Aldar hollered.

“I will _not_ see a flogging!”

“At last there’s a cap’n’s tone!”

“Insolence, Boson! I should throw you in the brig myself!”

“Do that and you’ll be in after him, Lorin!”

“Gentlemen, _enough!_ ” As his officers bickered, Lune wailed from above, and Drinian smacked his own skull, mortified by his lapse into raging indiscipline. “Before the crew! Aldar – manacle these wretches! Lorin, you are relieved. Drinian, if you’d be so good as to take the watch…”

“Aye, Captain.” And restore what order’s to be found among a crew gone beyond their commander’s control. “I’ll take a tour of the deck and check with the lookouts,” he added formally. Lune’s knotted fingers relaxed.

“Thank you, Drinian,” he breathed, hurrying away to the security of his cot. “I – call me at first light?”

“Of course, Sir.” Standard practise, as every man in earshot knew. The iron certainty of command turned into a piteous appeal. 

Anvard’s endless card games – even the pastoral dreariness of Westerwood – were suddenly more appealing than any month’s tranquil tacking alone in open sea.


	52. Fifty-One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mate and Boson are an embattled partnership under the folly of Captain Lune’s regime. There are some things, however, even the best of friends ought not to know about…

“What nincompoop makes the appointments, d’ you think? The Admiral’s lady’s chambermaid?” With Lorin snuffling on watch, Mate and Bosun were free to linger over hanging their laundry forward of the masthead on a calm and sunny morning. Aldar, it appeared, was determined to take advantage of a sympathetic ear. 

“Blowed if I know,” Drinian replied amiably. “Although the ship’s cat aboard the _Splendour Hyaline_ – old Narnian legend, the greatest vessel ever sent to sea, they say – might make a better officer than some I know.”

“Cap’n likes _Ayecap’n the Second_.”

“Captain likes everyone, that’s half our trouble! For’ard lookout! The enemy’s afore us, not athwart. Turn back to your duties and stop your yattering tongue! Bastin, you’ll find the fighting top’s above, I believe.”

“Aye, Mate.” Sullen as he never was under Kar’s coarse regime, Nerix heaved himself ostentatiously off the bow rail and turned toward the distant smear of land while his malingering associate inched up from the mast’s foot. “Not that the enemy’s weighed anchor these last three month,” he added under his breath. 

“Because they think we keep a sharp lookout, not knowin’ we’ve a miserable pair o’ rabbits on watch!” Aldar countered, stretching to yank the seaman’s ragged ponytail. “And a preening ninny on the poop,” he added in a whisper.

Drinian’s mouth was curling into a grin before he could correct it. “We’ve the night watches between us for the next week,” he said comfortably. “Which means lookouts with their eyes open, if naught else.”

“Aye, and fewer dullards riskin’ their next week’s tots on our goodwill.” There was satisfaction at least in the crew’s behaviour when their Mate and Boson had command. Little enough to cling to, Drinian considered, snapping the last peg around his tunic’s hem and letting the garment flap at his friend’s weather-worn face, but with himself or Aldar prowling the starlit deck, a reluctant kind of peace would reign. In the presence of Lune or Lorin…

Men chattered. Left duties half done and scraps of dinner in the scuppers. His father had disdained the lash, declaring it the weapon of a failed officer, while Captains Kolin and Ram had kept order by the intractable force of their own will. Perhaps a single use of it in the name of Captain Lune would prove the Lord Tirian’s point, his son decided. Because if ever there was an officer doomed from the instant of his promotion to fail, it was surely the Old Man on _Retribution’s_ grimy poop.

“Lion bless me,” he growled, tumbling into his hammock before sunset in the hope of four hours’ sleep before his turn at night watch. “What I shouldn’t give for a good glug o’ the grog myself. Lion Alive! I’d rather an hour without a care than Miraz’s head on a Narnian block at present!”

*

For three weeks they cruised off Port Terebinthia’s craggy bay. Swords remained sheathed and arrows unshot, the Captain too timid to call his men to fighting drill against their will. Even Marton, ever smiling under the terror of Kar’s regime, slouched about his business with a furrowed brow: aware, Drinian suspected, without fully understanding the cause, of the rottenness at the core of their ship.

It was with relief he spun the wheel on the last morning of their watch, smoothly heeling his ship sou’-west toward Galma and the promise of fresh provisions. Even Lorin, shambling from his hammock ten minutes after his watch was due to begin that morning, confessed to secreting two nights’ grog, eyeing his immediate superior as if expecting Drinian’s now famous salt-water response to alcoholic misconduct for himself. 

He might have had it, had the Mate not been vainly awaiting some word from the Captain at the sight of an officer’s tardiness. And it was small wonder the crew ignored all bar the most basic discipline, when an officer was left to flout it unchallenged.

Every night under the Second’s watch ended with a gaggle of noisy sailors on the fo’c’sle, swilling their collected rum rations until Mate and Boson could be roused from their beds. The first time it had happened on Captain Lune’s watch too, Aldar had finally thrown up his hands and admitted defeat.

“We’re lost and there’s naught to be done about it!” he bawled, little caring who heard his disrespectful assertion. “Lion Alive! If the drunken ninnies don’t land us on a sandbar or sink us before we can reach Barwell it’ll be the greatest miracle since Lune the Limp sired ‘isself a bloomin’ heir! Even threshing and sobbin’ for ‘is mother, I’d sooner old Kar were back on the poop than sail another cruise like this!”

*

By unspoken agreement they went separate ways when their turn came for liberty in port, each man aware of the other’s implacable intent. Turning west of the chaotic quayside, Drinian wandered beyond the first few streets of shabby taverns which spilled out smoke, alcoholic fumes and harsh cawing laughter. Higher up and further in there would be less chance of stumbling over a man of his own company in a state of disrepair, and for the first time in his existence it was his sole and solemn purpose to forget his ship’s – and perhaps even his own – name.

Larger, cleaner but no less hospitable, the establishments he had heard Topasio and Marix of the _Tiger_ mention in hushed tones loomed invitingly off the bow. Tingling anticipation in his gizzard Drinian pushed lightly on the door of the nearest, breathing the smokiness of a settling fire and the heady richness of free-flowing spirit deep into his lungs. From a low oak settle under the shuttered window, a graceful shadow rose.

“Welcome, young master,” it purred, the words quite as smouldering as the banked glow from the hearth. “Wine? Ale? Something… stronger?”

Digging his heel into the scented rushes that scattered the floor he twisted toward her: whip-slight, with a tumbling cascade of luxuriant hair as black and glossy as his own, and a pair of mischievous, almond-shaped brown eyes set wide apart that assessed him as brazenly as he did her. “Juliana,” she stated, offering a delicate hand. With a flirtatious smile, he kissed it.

“Drin.” The nickname was out before he realised, and the grin widened. _Another dozen leagues between the degenerate wretch ashore and the martinet of Retribution’s decks!_ “And if there’s a tankard o’ grog to be had, I’ll gladly share with you.”

“Quite the gentleman, aren’t you?” Ruby lips parted in a generous smile, and skirts their match whispered against his legs as she moved by just that little too close. Enjoying the small skitter in his chest, Drinian trailed a finger down the silky fabric.

“How long will that impression last, I wonder?” he drawled, warmth rippling through him at her inviting glance behind. 

“Take station on yonder bench, sailor, and we shall see! How long’s your ship in port?”

Head cocked, eyes narrowed, he considered her question before a hearty laugh broke free. “Not long enough!” he exclaimed, offering an arm for her to tumble against, the sweetness of her rose-and-honey perfume as exciting as her soft weight pressing into his thigh. Splashing strong measures of dark spirit into a pair of pewter tankards, Juliana stretched to plant her open mouth against his neck.

“Best make use of what time you have, then,” she cried, snuggling tighter as another pretty slip as lively as herself dragged a tousled, grinning young Galmian to share their seat. “Mirana, this here’s Drin – Drin, my sister Mirana, and…”

“Malwain.” The Galmian’s slur implied a fair few tankards might already have been drained. His forehead furrowed in concentration, he guided an unsteady hand across the fine lace trim of his companion’s square-cut bodice, his rapt gaze never leaving her flushed face. “’s that grog y’ve got there?”

“Help yourself.” Plenty more where it came from Drinian gathered, absently lifting Juliana onto his lap to grant the other pair a better seat. “Good stuff, too.”

“Only the best for the friends of this house, Drin.” Her mug held to his parted lips Juliana used her other hand to tickle behind his ear, sending small, delicious shivers right down to his toes. “We’ll have music later. Dance with us?”

“Of course.” If, he amended as the potent spirit burst into his bloodstream, he could still stand unaided by the time they started.

*

It was his own low groan that roused him, not the first pale slivers of daylight that slithered between carelessly-closed woollen curtains. Gingerly testing his leaden eyelids, Drinian winced from their reluctant gleam, his hands making the unsteady climb to his throbbing head without guidance from a clouded brain. “By the Lion’s Mane,” a rusty voice grated, the strain in his throat making it known as his own. “Oh, my _head!_ ”

He let his eyes close again, gathering courage for a wary movement that made his innards roll and his head spin. “Could do with a pail o’ salt water,” he mumbled, forcing his crusty eyes open long enough for a bleary survey of his surroundings.

Not much bigger than his cabin off _Retribution’s_ poop, with a cooling breeze wafting in through ill-fitting glass and creaking frames. A small, scratched chest beside the low pallet bed that barely contained his full length, and a glass – blessed relief! – of water left within reach of a wavering hand. Soft, clean sheets; bare beams exposing the underside of a sturdy slate roof; and a floor polished better than many a galleon’s deck. Modest, but serviceable. 

As cautious as if he were on the mainyard in a hurricane, Drinian levered himself onto an elbow, frowning. Flashes of memory crowded in on him, bright enough to hurt his eyes. The beginnings of a grin creaked over cracking lips.

Juliana sloshing rum into a tankard already brimming over, dribbling the satiny liquor down the neck of his shirt. Her tongue lapping, ticklish and teasing in the droplets’ wake. Whirling, laughing, from her to her sister and back as the lumpen Malwain snored, overcome a full half-hour in a grog-cushioned stupor. Small hands curling around his hips; the swirl of skirts against clinging hose; and the languid, sluggish trickle of blood turning to pure alcohol in his veins.

He remembered careering down narrow streets with the night air on his face; Juliana’s voice thrumming a chorus he couldn’t recall as they weaved their way between merchants’ carts, tumbling over refuse heaps and roaring with laughter in tangle of limbs. 

More rum; and a bubbling sensation of pleasure sweeping from head to toe. The spinning of a foggy head; cool hands and warm ruby lips. Not enough to form a full history of shore leave, but sufficient. 

With a tongue that felt as furry as a monarch’s ermine he wet his lips, confident enough now to grasp the brimming glass at his side and gulp its contents in one. _Oh, my lady Retribution_ , he thought wryly, aware of a dagger’s strike through his right temple as he clambered to his feet. _No ship was ever better named than you!_

His shirt, wrenched wide open, caressed his thighs. Hissing a curse against his head’s objection to being dipped, Drinian scooped up the rest of his clothes and dressed clumsily, fumbling inside his jerkin until his fingers closed around a Galmian coin of reasonable worth. Deftly he flicked it, emitting a soft whoop as it clinked into the empty glass, before pattering as lightly as he could on unsteady legs down the narrow back stair and into the street.

“Hang it, that sun’s bright!”

With its aid, even the most befuddled mariner could steer his way safely back to the harbour wall, flinching against every ebullient hawker’s caw and crow as the taste of brine on his tongue grew stronger. Barges and brigantines grazed their wooden walls against the wharf. A lone fisherman steered his unwieldy barque between the forest of larger craft toward the sea. And there, bobbing calmly at the harbour steps, lay the very thing he needed. 

A rowing boat with a wiry old oarsman lounging at the bow, hawkish features creasing like ancient leather as he hollered a greeting designed to hurt the unwary mariner’s pounding head. “Need transport out t’ your ship there?”

“Aye.” Tentative boarding for the first time since his toddling days Drinian settled in the bow, shielding his sunken eyes from the water’s glare. The old ferryman cackled.

“Remember ‘er name?” he challenged. 

“ _Retribution_ – great galleon half a point off the lighthouse. And must you _shout?_ ”

“Oh, you’ll do well enough. Took Boson out before y’ – couldn’t even get the lady’s name out! Friend o’ yours, is ‘e?”

“Aye.” Closing his eyes Drinian flopped back against the bow, willing away the unaccustomed lurch in his belly at their breaching of the breakwater. “Shan’t be suffering alone then,” he murmured, dropping an arm over the side. The rush of cold water against his fingers was soothing and reviving in one, and playfully he withdrew his hand to shake the droplets over his face. “Won’t stop him laughing at me, mind!”

“You’ve not the look of a hardened carouser,” the boatman told him, easing his oars inboard and letting them drift with a gentle bump into _Retribution’s_ hull. With a shake of the head that set both ears ringing Drinian fished out a coin and rose, swaying against the rolling his movement triggered.

“Might develop the head, but not likely the heart,” he agreed, focusing a moment before grasping the length of rope ladder hanging in welcome from the entryport. The old ferryman’s laughter followed him all the way to the rail and beyond.

The maindeck lay unattended, he realised with a sinking heart, the night’s merry oblivion forgotten. _Even at Barwell a man should stand to challenge an intruder on the hull!_

“Good night was it, Mate?” Sar hollered down from the fo’c’sle, lifting his great bellow a notch at Drinian’s wince. 

“I may have to throw myself in the brig,” he said amiably, resting a supporting hand against the mast’s trunk before the good-natured howls of glee could rain down and split his poor head in two. “We’re provisioned?”

“Aye, just waitin’ on Tannick an’ Nerix now. Could be bidin’ a while!”

“Drinian!” Ignored by the speaker as he passed, Lune bustled down from the prow. “By the Lion, you’re positively pallid! And your _eyes!_ What my Lady Westerwood would say…”

“A great deal I shouldn’t pay heed to, most likely.” Blast, but his laugh was loud! “You’ll want a hand securing casks in the hold, Captain?”

“Yes, yes of course! Should our two crewmen not return in the next hour…”

“They’ll come. Unless they’re dead drunk in a ditch, which is always possible.” The dimness of the hold was a blessed relief to more than himself, Drinian realised as he cannoned into a familiar figure at the ladder’s foot. “Morning, Boson. Mastered our lady’s name yet, have you?”


	53. Fifty-Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the worst hangover of his life. In the grand scheme of things, a banging headache is about become the least of Drinian's problems...

Though some blackguard still sought to hammer a way out from behind his eyes, he took the wheel to guide _Retribution_ from her crowded anchorage, fighting a chancy and changeable wind to hold a fair course for Terebinthia. With Lune still fretful, checking their provisions a dozen times in an hour, he was forced to stay on deck, bawling orders to the sailmen that echoed too long inside his skull while Lorin looked on with an open smirk and seamen still more groggy than himself stumbled against the ocean’s roll in answer. 

The fear of seasickness receded. The pounding at his temples did not. When the night’s tots were issued at sunset it was from the hand of the Second, as the Mate himself turned in disgust from the filthy hateful stuff.

“To your cot with you!” Lune instructed when the first faint prickles of starlight began to breach the clouds’ barrier. “Sleep off what’s left of the grog, and the headache will likely go with it. We’ll be in sight of the Thirty League Rocks by morning if the wind keeps stiffening.”

“We’ll be level with ‘em by midnight if it gets up much more,” he muttered, hesitating inside the hatch with feet apart, feeling the rush of the wild elements rising through the timbers and into his boots. “Lorin - for the love o’ the Lion keep those lookouts sharp!”

His cot creaked loudly, swinging with the pitch and yaw of the hull. Letting the door bang shut behind him, Drinian eyed it longingly before dropping his gaze to grubby jerkin, crumped hose and muddy boots. He hesitated for a moment and then, with a muffled oath, clambered in as he stood.

He was fathoms deep in a moment.

*

He never felt the rising swell, the deep ocean’s early warning of tempests to come. Heard none of the whistle and howl of the gale that carried _Retribution_ ever faster, her great sail straining. He slept on, as oblivious as Lorin, drowsing contentedly against the wheel, until the galleon juddered and shivered, almost stopped for an awful instant.

Then he was wrenched into wakefulness, by the grumble and rumble of stone against oak and the terrible _crunch_ and _crack_ of planks torn apart at their tarred seam. “Aground!” he spluttered, half-falling from his cot, raw panic giving him strength to claw free of a cover’s serpentine coil. “Captain! We’re aground!”

Rising from the ship’s bowel came a clashing cacophony of sounds, each one more frightening than the last: groggy, terrified men yelling contradictory questions and orders; the clatter and thump of falling provisions, and casks dragged free of their moorings; the rasping, grinding grate of cleaving timber; and under it all, the worst sound to any sailor’s ear. The insidious hiss and gurgle of water, finding entry where the wooden walls were gouged. 

“Man the pump you cowardly lubbers!” The scream was Aldar’s, hoarse and breaking as the Boson staggered in his nightgown, his position identified by the flickering of a grubby lantern waved high. Its dull bronze reflection glinted off something black and sinuous, snaking aft from the very bows and making Drinian’s racing heart stop for an endless moment. 

A thunderclap above startled it back to thudding against his ribs and he cupped both hands to his mouth, summoning all his strength for a stentorian shout. “All hands on deck! Boson, the pump’ll be swamped! Get the men above, for the Lion’s sake!”

Wild-eyed, screaming demons in streaming nightshirts surged up the ladder toward him, only to be hurled back like so much flotsam for an instant as their wind-driven progress farther onto rocks was abruptly stilled. “ _Up_ , you knaves!” Drinian roared, hurling himself back against the poop hatch and outward, falling into the screaming wind and out of their terror-stricken path. “Captain!”

“Damned treacherous pox-ridden whoresons! Run us into the Thirty Leagues in your rum-sodden sleep, murdering dogs!” Lorin, he diagnosed wearily, had thoroughly lost his head. Clinging to the wheel as if it were a charm to protect him from the sheer jagged teeth of black basalt yards ahead, he screamed the foulest abuses at crewmen utterly frozen with befuddlement and fear. And still _Retribution_ ground her agonised way forward, her mast still upright, sail curved to the wind. “Man the pumps, you cowards! Get below and pump for your lives!”

“She’s taking in too fast!” Every gust made her shudder, the weight of water in her core making _Retribution_ tip uncontrolled, first one rail then the other dipping to kiss the raging swell. “Captain! _Lune!_ The pump’s overwhelmed!”

Swathed in his great cloak, his long hair loose and plastered to his livid cheek, Lune clung to the port rail, staring stricken at the chaos unleashed across his kingdom. A disembodied voice screeched from the maindeck: a helpless scrap of humanity sliding, grasping at air as the ship’s lurch cast him loose with his despairing cry following him into the depths. “What shall I _do?_ ” the Captain cried.

“I’ll spit those drunkards with my own damned sword! Lookouts! I’ll see you all hanged!”

Aldar struck out like a serpent, the crack of palm against cheek audible even over the elements’ roar. “Stop your tongue, yammerin’ fool!” he bellowed, grabbing Drinian’s shoulder against _Retribution’s_ slow, sloshing roll toward the rocks. “Cap’n, we’ve got to go! Give the order for the love o’ the Lion, she’s lost! Look! The mast!”

His words were drowned under the creak and crunch of shattering pine. Drinian watched, rooted to the spot as the huge timber tore and slewed, wrenching the sail and rigging in its wake. Even the raging elements seemed to fall silent, momentarily stunned by their own power.

The respite was brief enough. A huge wave sluiced the decks, causing men to slip and voices to be raised in shrill fear. “Abandon ship!” Drinian bellowed, letting himself slither against the starboard rail while the galleon groaned, the malevolent hiss of something being torn starting out of every timber. “Jump for the rocks! Aldar – Lorin! Captain!”

Languid Lorin had never answered an order faster. As the terrible scene was harshly illuminated by the moon’s metallic piercing of cloud, Drinian watched a line of half-dressed, howling men fling themselves through the spume that swirled around the ragged cliffs’ base. Only one man held back.

“ _Lune!_ ”

He staggered against the ship’s precipitous lean, flailing to snatch at a handful of stiff waxed leather that slipped between numb fingers. “Naught to be done Mate, save yourself!” Aldar howled, clutching the taffrail so hard his knuckles cracked. Callused fingers bit into his arm, holding Drinian against a roll that raised the keel’s broken base from the water for a shocking moment. As the ship dragged herself right for a split second, gallant to the last, the two men clung together, watching powerless as their Captain was carried away.

“ _Jump!_ ”

Instinct slammed him harder than a pirate’s iron bar. Unsighted, drenched and utterly beyond thought, Drinian launched himself in the direction of the very rocks that destroyed his ship, feeling eager hands grabbing onto his arms and into his hair, hauling him where his scrabbling feet alone could not go. Panting, he crawled into their embrace as they dragged him clear of the submerged shelf grinding the galleon to splinters, out of the crashing waves and higher, drenched by spray but clear of the tide’s icy claw.

The Thirty League Rocks he realised, scratching for purchase with fingers blooded and bruised, were not the smooth, sheer cliffs they appeared from the safety of the poop. Rough outcrops formed foot and hand holds. Further in, plunging crevices promised some small protection from the weather’s wrath. His words whipped away, Sar gestured madly downward, his meaning clear.

_Better a score of broken bones that a night being battered by this storm!_

*

By dint of much slipping, cursing and a few bruising falls under the stars’ muted light, they found a deep gully to protect them from the weather’s worst excess. Three waxed cloaks secured with belts created a crude tarpaulin, and beneath it Drinian was last to slide, keeping his eyes averted from the death-throes of his unlucky ship. Lune’s drawn, desperate features hung before his eyes, exactly as they were in the last moment before he was torn away. The last thing he wanted was to watch _Retribution_ follow her skipper beneath the waves.

In Lune’s place he summoned another face: one cherished but held in check for the better part of a decade, too precious and painful for frequent consideration. Broad-browed, bronzed and steady. Dark eyes, deep-set and wise. 

Even his voice, deep and self-assured, seemed to whisper through the worst of the storm. _Good men can stomach any horror, boy, with a leader to guide them._ How often had he heard those words?

And eighteen men, at Drinian’s rapid count, were left of the thirty who had rolled back from shore leave not a day ago. Half of them in thin linen nightshifts; all of them soaked, shivering and numbed with the ultimate shock. Looking to him - to their Mate - for orders; encouragement; protection.

He shifted, the arm draped over Aldar’s shoulders making him painfully aware of the shudders running through the smaller man. On his other side Sar chuntered through chattering teeth, evidently more indignant than alarmed by their predicament. Ragged breathing echoed in the pitch dark, broken only by an occasional strangled sob; a hiccough; a moan.

His eyes stung. Brine’s bitterness closed his throat. The image swam before him again, and he could not blink it away. Lune, utterly defeated, watching the last wave sluice to sweep him away. “He never even _tried!_ ” he heard himself whisper.

“Decided like a captain at the end, I s’pose.” Aldar stretched, lifting his heavy head from Drinian’s arm. “Goin’ down with the ship was the best for ‘im, lads. Lion alone knows, ‘e’d smart for her loss back ‘ome!”

“Aye, likely enough to be true,” Lorin agreed. Someone – Drinian suspected it might be Nerix – snorted.

“Officer o’ the watch might too!”

“How am I to keep the scurvy drunken dogs---”

“Enough!” As men began to murmur and the Second Mate grew shrill Drinian surged to his feet, careless of the wet slap of soaking oilskin against his crown. “Any man that wishes - climb out on these blasted rocks to rave and blame ‘til you’re swept away! If you’d care to stay sheltered, hold civil tongues!”

Close by he caught an appreciative snuffle. A clammy hand curled briefly at his wrist. “Well said, Mate,” Aldar mumbled. 

Even in pitch blackness he sensed their submission. “Very well. Every man stay close to your neighbour. If he starts to nod or snore, give a kick or a shake – whatever you choose, only keep him awake! Sleep now and you’ll likely never wake again!”

“The Mate’s right.” Tannick, he gathered, quickly availed himself of the opportunity to jab at Lorin whether the snivelling wretch needed rousing from the death-sleep or no. “Keep a-swayin’ and a-yattin’, m’lads!”

“Sing!” Sudden, senseless laughter surged to his lips and when theirs echoed it Drinian knew a fleeting moment of manic joy. Summoning the words of a shipboard favourite, he raised his melodic baritone to challenge the hurricane’s scream.

“ _Said Mistress Sal to her sailor,_  
_At his final dawn on shore,_  
_Dearest, how can you leave me?_  
_Don’t you love your Sal no more?_

The air hummed around him. Bones creaked in sudden movement, sodden linen squelching against skin. Voices raised, swirling with the storm.

_“Said the sailor to his sweetheart,_  
_Pretty Sal, my soul is true!_  
_And well you know the reasons,_  
_That I’ll stay in thrall to you!”_

A smile started on his numbed lips. In harmony with his companions Drinian bellowed out the sailor’s bawdy litany in praise of Mistress Sal’s perfections, hearing merriment and strength in the voices that surrounded him. Rash, unfounded as it was, his confidence surged.

The one voice he least expected stuttered at the final verse, and while his neighbours raised an appreciative roar for the final note he twisted in the direction he judged it to be. “Thought you’d know that better than any of us, Tannick,” he teased. A mighty sniff answered.

“Know it better wi’ a bellyful, Mate! My old mother’d have my ‘ide if she ‘eard it from me sober!”

“Small wonder Kar’s floggin’s did no good!”

“Boson’s got a lighter ‘and than my old Mamma, Nerix, let me tell you! Beggin’ your pardon, Sir.”

“We’ll bring ‘er aboard your next ship!” Aldar shot back through a chorus of jeers. Lifting a hand to hide his smile (and realising too late how foolish the gesture was) Drinian gave him an amiable nudge. 

“And deny yourself a pleasure?” he asked. “By the Lion! It may be the last weapon of a weak captain, but the lash is the only answer to an inveterate sot like Tannick! Had Lune only allowed, I’d have laid it on your back with my own fair hand in hope o’ preventing another from lurching down the same rum-sodden path!"

Low murmurs in the dark suggested his sentiment was understood. “Aye Mate, worked well enough under Kar,” Sar confessed. “No lookout’d be snoozin’ on his ship; and I’d still ‘ave me new pouch o’ baccy from Galamaia!”

“Two wineskins o’ the best grog t’ be found I ‘ad stowed,” Tannick mourned, his hook-nosed profile illuminated for an instant as a gust lifted their rough tarpaulin. “Somethin’ f’r a rainy day, I thought.”

“The sharks’ll be drunk for a week!”

“And in a vile temper once they’re sober!”

“Like you was comin’ aboard, Mate?” Sar’s voice softened, its harsh grate almost affectionate. “Never thought t’ see _you_ lookin’ so rough!”

“As well you can’t see me now!” The fond mockery dripped off him like the rivulets trickling down his neck. Impatient, Drinian plucked at his shirt’s neck which only, to his disgust, made the sensation worse. “Aldar, you’re frozen! Here – take my jerkin.”

“’s wet through, lad!”

“And likely still stinks o’ the last Galmian rubbish heap I rolled through,” Drinian agreed cheerfully, struggling to detach the sodden leather from his back. “Do as you’re told, man! I’ve my shirt and hose, you’re in a nightgown; and at your great age you’ll feel this damnable storm far worse than I!”

“Fancy she’s blowed ‘erself out, Mate.” The smallest movement raised their improvised roof and cautiously Nerix peeked beneath it, shrewdly assessing the ferocity of the gale. “Oi, Bastin y’ damned villain! Snore on my shoulder again an’ I’ll take your ruddy great thick block off!”

From the yelp that followed Drinian gathered the threat proved effective. “If Tannick’s faulty memory can stand another song, lads…” he suggested mildly. The affronted seaman responded with a truly hideous bray.

_“Oh, ye girls o’ grimy Galamaia,_  
_All the tars do sing o’ thee…”_


	54. Fifty-Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He didn't dare hope for rescue. Even when it comes, Drinian finds there's not a great deal to celebrate...

At first light he clambered to the top of the rocks, shielding his eyes from the dove-grey dawn. Gentle waves plashed against the cliff’s base, and farther out a pair of porpoises danced through their foamy tops in the dappling sun. Of the graceful galleon _Retribution_ , not a single trace remained.

Chilled to the marrow, Drinian wrapped a steadying arm around the basalt peak and twisted, holding his breath against a wave of dizziness. He frowned. Blinked. 

Looked again.

It was still there.

“A brig!” he shouted, exultation making him shrill. “Aldar! Lorin! Haul the men up here, and hand me that confounded _cloak_ as a signal! There’s a brig on course for Galma! Bestir yourselves, you lubberly dogs! Climb up here and _shout!_ ”

He had not, he understood in that moment of grisly clarity, expected rescue. The red cross on gold of Archenland fluttering idly at her masthead, a creamy wave curling in a drooping moustache before her prow, she was as squat and ungainly a vessel as ever went to sea, and Drinian had never seen anything more beautiful.

He forgot discomfort: the stiffness in his elbow that fired dull pulses of pain with every movement; the crust of dried brine on teeth and tongue that made shouting an unconscionable struggle. His heart raced, his head spinning with the sheer wonder of it all. A friendly ship. Dry clothes; warm blankets; and hot, spiced wine.

_Rescue._

“Ahoy! Archenlandish brig, ahoy!” Aldar was trembling harder now than in the depths of a desperate night. “Confound the miserable knaves, can’t they _hear_ us? Ahoy, I say!”

Agonisingly slow, the brig drifted closer. Sunshine caught something high at her masthead, a dazzling lance of pure white light flaring like a comet toward the horizon. Drinian blinked it away, too bedazzled to grasp its meaning. 

“They’re coming!” Lorin for a novelty was quicker, his flat tones rising to a scream of raw excitement. “We’re saved, my lads, _saved!_ Look! Look, she’s tacking hard a-larboard! She’s coming right at us!”

Disembodied voices floated, mere fragments of sound above the dancing waves. “ _Retribution_!” Drinian hollered, the word picked up and hurled again by a dozen voices at his back. “Wrecked on the rocks! For the love o’ the Lion be _careful_ you fools or you’ll need rescue too! We’re His Majesty’s galleon _Retribution_!”

“What’s left o’ the poor old girl,” Aldar muttered sourly. Across the water, a reply boomed back.

“ _Retributions!_ We’ll toss you a rope – daren’t come in too close!”

Willing hands stretched to seize the flying tail of thick, tarred twine. Clumsy fingers cracked and unyielding from cold secured it around the base of a convenient cairn. Led by Lorin, the drenched and starving survivors began a careful, slithering crawl through the foamy collar at the rocks’ jagged base, flopping into the brig’s boat where it was held by a band of straining oarsmen and up her rope ladder, every man falling exhausted over the taffrail and out of sight. 

Drinian watched from the cairn’s lee, forcing his woollen mind to name each man as he tumbled from view. “Marton!” he yelped suddenly, almost losing balance in his panic. Aldar lunged, holding him steady. 

“He’s gone, Drinian,” he murmured. “Slipped away in my arms. I didn’t want the men to know… not ‘til they’re safe, you know how they loved ‘im.”

“No.” His stomach lurched. His chest hollowed. Digging his nails in so hard even his unresponsive palms felt their sting Drinian shook his head, salt stinging in his swollen eyes. “ _No!_ ”

“Couldn’t sing, nor hear us callin’.” Aldar’s tears came freely, but his own refused to fall. “I thought – let’s slip ‘im down to the waves with the ship. He’d want that! Help me heft ‘im down while they’re not watching, eh?”

Mute as the corpse itself – _still pliant, not long gone_ , he noticed, too beaten down for the anger he craved – Drinian clambered back to their poor shelter, taking Marton’s legs while Aldar tenderly raised him under the arms. His lips tinged with blue, his expression as serene as it had been in life, _Retribution’s_ most contented soul went placidly down after his ship. “’Tis what he’d ‘ave asked for,” Aldar murmured.

“Aye.” How, Drinian wondered bitterly, was anyone ever to know? Feeling as though half the world were on his shoulders he forced himself to turn, wobbling uncertainly across the rocks in his friend’s steadier wake. 

Aboard the brig he could hear the familiar voices of men whooping, sobbing and howling for the joy of a rescue not one had dared to dream might come. Closer to was Aldar’s reedy tenor, quavering on the refrain of a lament for the shipwrecked sailor; the splash of the waves; the kiss of salt spray against his cheek.

He was alive. He ought to be happy.

Instead, as the deepest fog rolled around him and the deck onto which he was dragged gave way with the glug and ooze of quicksand, Drinian knew only a final, fleeting sensation of utter despair.

*

Slimy chains clanked around him. Mocking laughter scorched his ears. Threshing, frantic, he fought his way free, kicking out at the demons drenched in blood that rose around him.

Marton, his bright dark eyes sightless. Tattooed and brawny Torlow with his rusted club raised over the shoulder. Captain Ram, the arrow still quivering in his throat and a dozen blood-sodden _Tigers_ at his back; Marix and Berix, Crain and Darin with their bellies split and oozing; and a grinning giant with rat’s tails for hair and a puffy, pus-filled hole where the eye should be looming large in their gory wake. Drinian turned, curses bubbling against his swollen lips. Desperate to run. To be away.

Dark woods shrouded in mist banished them, bringing shadowy glimpses of monstrous, misshapen forms in their depths. Voices called his name, echoing weirdly off the broken walls of distorted ruins. Hot breath prickled, wet and unwelcome on the back of his neck. 

_Drinian!_

A giant figure in armour loomed and he threw himself aside, out of reach of its bloodstained sword. A pale hand reached out, passing ghostly through his arm.

_Katharina._

Her head slewed oddly, a thin, throbbing ribbon of scarlet bright around her neck. Her sweet, rounded features twisting, contorting her prettiness into a monster’s grimace as a terrible roar was torn from her throat.

Miraz burst from her gaping mouth, robed and crowned in all his stolen glory. A dozen ghouls solidified from the smoke that curled around him: the headless trunks of Greenglade and Southern March; the crushed form of a Passarid warrior broken by a Giant’s foot; and Tirian, Lord of Etinsmere, blood still seeping from a dozen wounds as he cradled the lifeless remains of his beautiful wife. 

He knew she was dead. Yet when she turned her too-pale face and whispered his name, he felt the breath of it right through to his marrow.

“Drinian. Be calm now dearest, all’s well. All’s well!”

He tried to scream, to swat them all away, but his limbs were useless, as loose and liquid as molten lead. Blackness closed around him, and only the softest thread of her voice remained.

“You’re safe now, my dearest. You are safe.”

*

Each time they rose it returned to save him, the merest whisper of sound: a caress to take him serenely down into oblivion’s cushioned depth. Until the day he felt it strong and tangible, a lifeline to clutch as he swam up through a treacly ocean. The scratch of a manicured nail first; then the featheriness of lips, shockingly cold on his clammy brow.

“Drinian!” Not his mother’s voice he realised drowsily. Familiar but huskier, with an accent so much more clipped, so much more like his own. Sluggish, his mind supplied a word he knew and, flicking his tongue across unresponsive lips, he tried to taste it.

“’nt?”

“’Tis I, my poor, sweet child.” Something swayed in front of him, a thin face lined and smeared with deep grey marks. Not a phantom, a bloody ghost of what was gone. He swallowed hard and tried again.

“ _Aunt_.”

“My dear.” He thought she might be hugging him as her image blurred and something wispy tickled against his jaw. There was… _something_ , a pressure against him, a strange kind of stickiness gathering below what must be his chin. Yet with the strange, floating sense of awareness came no definite physical sensation. He was there and yet somehow, he was not.

“Let him sleep, Katharina.” Another voice, gruff and more distant, that his foggy brain reluctantly decided it knew. Another shadow, broader, darker, loomed across his hazy vision. It came into clear focus for an instant, then everything faded away.

*

The second time brought clarity enough to identify Uncle Dar snoring in an oversized chair and the lean, erect silhouette of Aunt against the window. A great wave of lassitude swept on the heels of recognition and Drinian succumbed to it gratefully, barely conscious of its meaning.

Home. He was home, at Barwell. He was safe.

*

By the fourth day he was strong enough to hold himself awkwardly in the crook of his uncle’s arm while a clucking physician dripped foul-tasting potion over his tongue. He even felt every shudder as his stomach recoiled and Aunt darted forward to dab the stickiness of it from his chin as if he were an infant.

He was, Drinian acknowledged, hardly more capable than one. Too weak to sit unaided, his mid still blurred by bouts of fever that roused every demon from its grave, he accepted her ministrations meekly, never thinking to challenge or question. He never even noticed how his lethargy troubled them.

She was at his bedside whenever he stirred, hers the hand that seized his when the sleeping draught that held his nightmares at bay loosened its cossetting hold. She fed him diligently until his own fingers were steady around the spoon, even crooning an old Narnian lullaby when he sagged against his pillows. Gradually, with the slow return of his wits, he began to remember to thank her.

“Only regain your health Drinian,” she chided, too slow in turning away to hide the tell-tale glisten in her eyes. “The King sends for word of you every second day. I should be glad to send better tidings to the Prince and his sister.”

“Please do.” A long-forgotten wisp of interest curled through his mind. “Aunt? How long have I been here?”

“Twelve days, since the brig _Badger_ reached Barwell. Seventeen since you fainted with your men safe on her decks. You passed your eighteenth birthday a week ago, little that we celebrated!”

“Did I?” Puzzled, Drinian cocked his head, a grin breaking out at the total absence of dizziness to accompany the characteristic gesture. “Many a mariner’s passed that in oblivion before me, I suppose.” 

Where she would once have rebuked, Aunt Katharina smiled. “And I have my positive tidings for His Majesty’s herald,” she said, stooping with a wince and a crack of delicate bone to kiss him. “If your humour’s returning, your strength will soon follow! Dar! Husband, come and sit with our nephew! What would you have for dinner tonight, Drinian? Good, well-cooked beef or goose will restore you sooner than all the weak broths Doctor Harin prescribes I’ll wager!”

His stomach grumbled its approval. “No pudding, mind,” she added with the wag of a warning finger. “Now, don’t _pout!_ We shall satisfy that sweet tooth of yours in time!”

*

True to her promise there were comfits and sweetmeats in succeeding days, and a large box of sugarpaste delicacies sent directly from the royal kitchen in the name of the Prince and his sister that earned a whoop and an agitated demand for paper and pens. Propped up in his uncle’s large armchair, tucked in among covers of velvet and fur, Drinian peered out into the bustling streets of Barwell from his window, selfishly revelling in the affectionate indulgence of his anxious relations. For the first time in his life, he knew no yearning for the sea.

“’Tis unnatural, Wife!” he heard his uncle growl in what was meant for a whisper late one night, when the horror of those last moments on _Retribution’s_ sea-sluiced poop dragged him terrified from his sleep. “Not even to _ask_ … This is not _our_ Drinian, this placid, unquestioning lubber! There’s no grief to match the death of his ship to a sailor. Until he’s mourned her, the lad will never be well!”

Buried deep was a reluctant acknowledgement of the old admiral’s truth. Pulling the covers over his head Drinian squeezed shut his eyes and willed them all away: Lune, Marton and the others; _Retribution_ herself, breaking her poor back on those cruel serrated rocks. Every time natural sleep took him, they came back.

In the morning, he forced himself to ask. “Where are my shipmates, Sir? Was there no enquiry?”

The Westerwoods shared a comprehending look, and discreetly the lady left his chamber. “The fault was her captain’s and that drear long drink o’ water Lorin’s, my boy,” Dar bumbled, quite failing to reach the cheery boom he sought. “He’s beached now, and good riddance! At least Lune spared himself that ignominy. 

“The lookouts took punishment readily enough – admitted their part and swore it would never have happened with the Mate or the Boson on deck. Your friend Aldar’s promoted in thanks, and you’ll have whatever place you should ask of Nain in your own good time. Oh, and there’ll not be another _Retribution_ in his lifetime. The King’s a superstitious fellow. He won’t curse another crew with the bad luck she had.”

He was, Drinian supposed, relieved to know his own prospects untainted: perhaps even enhanced given Aldar’s promotion. If only he could bestir himself to _feel_ what he knew! “The others…”

“Recovering, after their own fashion,” Dar assured him hastily. “You’ve the luck o’ the Lion, my lad, to have reached eighteen with all you’ve seen. Live to a hundred at this rate, I’ll wager! Ah, the physician’s come to congratulate himself on your progress. Humour the fellow – he’s a favourite of Barsin’s. A pompous old ninny, but for courtesy’s sake…”


	55. Fifty-Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’s recovering, physically. However, the trauma of the Retribution’s loss has left deeper scars, and the people around Drinian know it.

In slow stages, and without pausing at Anvard as was their custom, the Westerwood party made their way inland with Drinian carried, swaddled and complaining with every turn of the wheel, in a cart pulled by a stout bay cob. The spring air stung coldly on cheeks left hollowed from fever, while every jolt on the cobbles and dusty tracks promised another bruise, if not a broken bone. He was sullen with his relations. Withdrawn with the servants. And even as he berated himself for his ill-manners, he found himself entirely powerless to correct them.

Spring’s lustre brightened the countryside. Dar’s people were as cheery and contented as a household could be, with nothing too much trouble for their master’s kin. Daily he was urged to join his uncle for brisk canters around verdant pasture and ripening wheat field. Yet sitting in the comfortable parlour with a book in his lap every evening, Drinian wished himself a hundred leagues away.

In which direction hardly mattered.

There lay the rub he conceded, ambling listlessly through Lady Westerwood’s beloved roses on his daily lone perambulation with Aunt away at market. Nothing _mattered_ at all.

Without it being intended he found himself beneath the weeping cherry tree at the southernmost point of the garden. A delicate carpet of pink petals scattered her grave, more drifting into his hair as Drinian knelt, flattening his palms in the soft springiness of lush turf. “Oh, Mamma!” he sighed calling up her fine-boned features and tender smile for the agonised pleasure of actually feeling. “I wish you were here!”

Though the sky stayed brilliant azure above him he was aware only of darkness, closing in to possess him. Tears long unshed leaked beneath lowered eyelids and, like the small boy she had last kissed so long ago, he succumbed shamelessly to them, bending his lofty head to the ground while his hands clawed the earth and great shuddering convulsions ripped breathless gasps and grunts from his burning chest.

Time lost its meaning. The bell-like flute of two maids singing as they hung their mistress’s washing in the kitchen garden floated on fragrant air, the merry sound striking the heavy shields of his misery and rebounding clean away. Blades of grass clung and pricked at his damp fingers, their juices staining bronzed skin bright green. Drinian was aware of none of it.

Finally spent, he toppled forward, wet face pressed down as if he could kiss her fragile bones beneath the soil. Tremors wracked him as he fought for every breath, left staggered by the ferocity of his emotions. 

Blissful exhaustion overwhelmed him. His fingers still possessively curled in the ground that cradled her, Elizabetha Etinsmere’s desolate orphan slept soundly at last.

*

“Nephew! Drinian, come quickly! Dar! _Dar!_ I _told_ you to have a care for the child, where _is_ he?”

The industrious quacking wormed its way into his dreams. Groaning, Drinian rolled onto his back, drowsily identifying the sun that brushed his grimy face before he could force his crusty lids apart. “Wha?” he mumbled, long limbs uncurling through a luxuriant stretch. Her thin shadow fell across him, cooling the air that danced across his face.

“The war is over, Drinian!” For the first time in his hearing Aunt Westerwood bellowed louder that her lord, her neat pleat coming down on her shoulder as she stooped to heft her befuddled nephew to unsteady feet. “Emissaries passed through Barwell under a flag of truce two days ago, and King Nain has accepted the surrender! The whole town’s in an uproar and oh _where_ is your uncle? Dar! The boy’s been asleep on the wet ground, is this the care you have of him?”

In the excitement of her noisy proclamations, his blotchy, grass-stained face passed unnoticed, and he was able to duck away into an empty kitchen long enough to wash while the household rejoiced. “We’ll be summoned to Anvard before the week’s out I’ll wager!” Dar bellowed, casting aside his stick to caper with a giddy young parlourmaid under his wife’s indulgent eye. “And the blackguards compensate the King for the loss o’ the _Golden Mist_ , you say?”

“What recompense for the lives lost?” Drinian murmured, not expecting to be heard beneath the cheerful din. Lord Dar bit his lip. 

“His Majesty won’t forget their good service,” he said as people stilled and stared around him. “Small comfort I know, but he’ll be generous to their widows and have a father’s care for their heirs. Our Nain is a good king, but an even better man. He will remember what’s lost in his name.”

Small solace, Drinian reflected later that evening, nestled in below Westerwood’s towering chimney pot in lonely contemplation of the stars while the household sang and danced on the lawns below. But solace all the same. _And no more men need die for the sake of the King of Archenland’s plundered dinner plates!_

*

It was difficult not to be cheered by the gaiety that filled every street and market square when their party rode south to court. Banners and vibrant bunting fluttered everywhere, and at dusk lanterns strung high among the trees lit every path. Rosy women in their brightest smocks offered cakes and wine; children too young to understand why scattered flower petals and piercing giggles to the winds.

“Been a long while since I’ve seen so much frolicking,” Lord Dar commented. His wife’s delicate wince rippled down the reins to her chestnut mare’s satiny neck. “Sorry, m’dear! Mariner’s curse, the bellow of a bull!”

“How many years since you last went to sea?” Infected by the spirit of the day, Katharina Westerwood rolled her eyes and smiled her nephew’s way. “Drinian, take heed! One day, your lady will bless you for learning a courtier’s tone!”

“Perhaps, Aunt.” Trying not to sound as doubtful as he felt, Drinian dipped to accept a bun so fresh from the oven the thick butter inside it ran liquid. “Thank you!” he called to the pretty young woman who smiled and waved in reply. 

“You’ve a way with the wenches that didn’t come from the sea,” Dar observed, careful to moderate his tones in deference to his wife. “And don’t despair of Narnia yet! Miraz is no immortal, and your Caspian remains his heir.”

Even the birdsong seemed to stop under the chill of Aunt Katharina’s displeasure. “We pass Lord Aran’s manor within the hour,” she trilled, false gaiety twanging on every syllable. “He’s a boor I know Dar, but he _is_ your kinsman – and the King’s. When his wife sent word to suggest we ride together, I could hardly refuse!”

“The connection’s ancient on both sides,” Dar grunted, sending a look of mournful comprehension his nephew’s way. “But their boy’s appointed First Gentleman to the Prince’s household, and his sister’s presentable enough. You remember Sorina, Drinian?”

“Of course.” The grey clouds descended around him again, not so dark and cloying as they had been, they were enough still to blot all the sunlight from his soul. With the hair and the spirit of a dormouse, and a sibilant whisperiness to her words that made one feel uncomfortably as if one had a snake for an echo each time she exerted herself to second an opinion, the Lady Sorina was (in the words of Princess Anelia) fortunate to have at least an exceptionally remote blood tie to the ruling House to support her matrimonial quests. 

For a novelty, Anelia’s opinion had not been the most cutting proffered. “I should as soon wed my father’s Lord Chamberlain as take that simpering silly wretch to my bed!” Corin had yelped when the lady’s prospects had been mentioned in his presence. Even King Nain, ever tolerant of his heir’s indiscretions, had felt compelled to offer a stern rebuke.

But not, apparently, to discourage all Lord Aran’s grand hopes for his heiress. _Curse Corin and his flapping tongue! If a prince were in the offing old Aran wouldn’t deign to cast his line toward a penniless Narnian, no matter how grand his title might be!_

He was determined to be surly, but the confounded courtliness of his training refused to allow it. Even when the Lady Sorina brought her high-stepping mare to his bridle and mumbled a vague “I am pleased to see you in good health, my Lord,” he could do nothing but incline his head while making the required response.

“Thank you, Ma’am. I trust you’re as well as you appear?”

“Oh, very well thank you. The coming of spring makes such a difference, does it not?”

Aunt’s baleful eye landed on him. Unconsciously Drinian straightened his shoulders. “Indeed.”

“That the war’s over must be a cheering notion for you, my Lord Drinian!” Aran’s boom was Dar’s equal, but with a grate to its edge that Uncle’s lacked. His wife’s deafness, Drinian concluded, was either the result of her long marriage or a highly fortunate coincidence. 

“For all of us I daresay,” he parried. Arn, Corin’s newest household man, turned scarlet.

His sister glanced aside. “Yes, indeed!” Aran continued, his own mottled colour noticeably heightened. “Damned nasty business, if the ladies will pardon the expression! Being a sailor you’ll know far worse, I fancy!”

“All of which I’m schooled to forget the minute I come ashore, Sir.”

“Unfortunate for me that your uncle was never so taught.”

“Married you too late, Katharina m’dear!” Dar was uncomfortably aware of it too, he realised. At the first mention of the war, every other member of the party became paralysed with nerves. “By the Lion’s Mane you’d have schooled me to dance and flirt as prettily as – as…”

“As the gentleman you pretend to be?” Smoothly she insinuated her mount between Drinian’s and the girl’s, as if he were in need of a shield. Dar barked good-naturedly.

“There’s no recovery from cussing when a tar’s been shipwreck – I mean, spent so many years afloat,” he stammered, blenched to marble under a slew of scandalised stares. “And why this old crone’s pace, eh? Drinian, you’ve as good a seat as I’ve ever seen – set us a good gallop, I’m tired o’ this meandering!”

Not trying to hide his eagerness, Drinian spurred his glistening bay forward, the thunder of his hooves almost enough to drown out a distinctively Narnian accent’s accusing cry.

“Dar! How _could_ you be so _crass?_ Did we not agree…”


	56. Fifty-Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anvard – despite the presence of a few good friends – has never been more of a trial. Fortunately, the goodness of King Nain has never been more in evidence…

At least he was prepared for the funereal nature of his reception at Anvard. No phantom hovering over a feast, Drinian was sure, could have unnerved his companions more than the shipwrecked mariner of Westerwood.

King Nain, draped in black edged with ermine and laced with silver, pressed his hand by way of greeting. “Glad indeed are We to see you restored in health, my Lord,” he intoned, echoed by his Lord Chamberlain and a pair of loitering ushers. Drinian’s black brows knit.

“I had an excellent nurse, Sire,” he answered brightly. Barsin’s head creaked through a painful half turn.

“Oh, my _dear!_ ” a woman’s voice whimpered. 

“So much _thinner!_ ” sighed another.

“Hush! He’ll hear!” squealed a third. The King cleared his throat. 

“Won’t you come and warm yourselves at the fire?” he cried, over-bright as only an embarrassed monarch unaccustomed to the feeling could be. “The sun may be shining but the air holds a chill! Ushers! Wine and sandwiches for our friends, at once! My dear Aran, a pleasure to see your whole family! My Lord Arn, you know your way to the Prince’s chambers? Good, excellent! Sit close to the hearth and warm yourself, my Lord of Etinsmere! A hard day’s ride you must have had from Westerwood…”

“Thank you, Sire.” Uneasy under such solicitous clucking, Drinian lowered himself into the large wing chair offered, a worried eye on his uncle struggling manfully to manipulate arthritic limbs and a low wooden stool. “But the journey was easy enough and – really Uncle, let _me_ take that!”

“Certainly not! You’ll need the fire to put some colour in your cheeks before dinnertime.” On a loud huff, Dar plopped onto his perch with all the elegance of a dropped sack of cabbages. “You’ve been too long indoors boy, lost all your good seaman’s tan! Ahem! Those ambassadors, Sire – they’re gone from the castle?”

“From the kingdom I hope.” With a smile to the slight, fair lad who hovered at the parlour door Nain hauled himself upright, a flabby finger wagging his way as Drinian hastened to follow suit. “Now, now, young man! We shan’t have you exerting yourself unduly, if you please!”

*

Forbidden from joining the lively hawking party the next morning (and under royal command to remain indoors) he lingered in the shadow of the gatehouse until the drumming of hoofbeats had melted away, idly kicking at a convenient pebble as he turned. With his hands stuffed into his jerkin pockets he glided a step of the stately measure he had been forced to watch his friends dance at the gala ball, moving his lips through a litany of expressions hardly fitting for a generous sovereign’s halls.

Never had he expected to find life at Anvard more tedious even than Westerwood.

With nothing better to do (and no one to chide him) he chased the rounded pebble toward the stableyard, twisting his heel in the scattering of straw dropped by harassed ostlers busy ministering to their whinnying charges. One of them grinned in recognition before turning back to groom a lustrous black stallion, soothing the great beast with a murmur when it stamped a heavy hoof. Giving a whistle to alert man and beast alike to his approach, Drinian stretched over to pat its velvet muzzle.

“Hello, Tempest,” he crooned, pleased by the answering bray. “You remember me, old friend?”

“Likely ‘e does, m’Lord. There’s not many come to Anvard can ‘andle this crack-brain like you!”

“You’re kind to say so, Zar.” The man started at the easy use of his name, his flat, even features breaking into the broadest of grins. “But apparently I’m not fit to manage a dowager’s mule this morning! You won’t tell…”

“B’aint seen a gentleman in the yard all day, me,” Zar stated. Drinian clouted his shoulder.

“Thank you!” he exclaimed, distracted by the soft swirl of swift movement at the corner of his eye. “Oh! Your Highness.”

“My Lord Drinian.” Pale strands of hay dripping from her bejewelled person, the Daughter of Archenland dipped a sedate curtsy, as composed as if they stood in her father’s Great Hall rather than his stables, and there were no stains of straw or dirt on the skirts of her russet gown. “Shall we return to the castle?”

Someone sniggered. An unexpected flush raced up the graceful curve of the lady’s throat. 

Exaggerating the gallant motion Drinian extended his arm, repressing a yelp at the steel bite of her fingertips into his flesh. “I presume I’m best not knowing?” he hissed, trusting to the solidarity of the servants’ hall to block usually sharp ears. The slim form leaning into him undulated through a hysterical giggle.

“My father suspects enough already! Why do you think I’m left behind?”

He pursed his lips, turning to consider her dishevelled state with laughter welling up in his throat. “I assumed to assure yourself of greater privacy in the hayloft.”

“Am I so devious?” The challenge made her laugh, and her death-grip on his bicep relaxed. Drinian winked.

“Your Highness alone knows the answer. Here, let me help! You’ll cause a sensation strutting through the castle dripping hay.”

Between them they managed to dust her down to a presentable state before encountering Lord Hastin at the door. “Thank you for your company, my Lord,” Anelia fluted, fluttering her lashes. Drinian bowed.

“A pleasure, Your Highness,” he drawled, surreptitiously shoving a trailing ribbon of straw deeper into his pocket. Anelia’s mouth twitched. 

“He’ll report to Father that we’ve been _flirting_ , you know,” she whispered, pushed up onto tiptoe to tickle the words against his ear. 

“Aye: and no doubt he’d sooner imagine you practising your wiles on a foreign lord than one of his grooms!”

As he turned she stayed on her toes, the sleekness of her hair grazing against his lowered chin. “Then our pact holds?” she challenged. He offered his hand, surprised into a squeak when she carried it to her lips. 

He could still hear her laughter ringing through his head at the door of his own room, high in the north-west tower. And one person at least, he exulted, flinging himself down full-length on his soft feather bed, could be relied upon not to treat him like a liverish invalid!

*

“Drinian! Hi, Drinian, come quickly!”

Prince Corin’s spindly figure might finally show sign of filling out, but his fabled clumsiness remained happily unabated. Clattering down the length of the Portrait Gallery that joined Anvard’s two northern towers beneath the turrets, he still contrived to trip on the point of his own sword, landing with a heavy thud at his friend’s feet. Shaking his head until his hair stood on end, Drinian leaned down and gave a hearty heave on a flapping arm.

“Thank you,” Corin wheezed, thoroughly winded. Still clutching Drinian’s arm he staggered toward the nearest wall, jeopardising the level hanging of his great-grandfather’s severe likeness by thumping heavily into its frame. “Hang it, those tumbles hurt more the higher up they start! Go to my study at once. There’s an old friend there wants to be sure you’re not drowned and - oh!”

“I shan’t faint if you mention _Retribution_ , you know.” In the course of a week’s being fussed about, swaddled in unnecessary layers of fur and told how very _well_ he looked, Drinian had craved exactly this directness. “Truly, Corin! My ship was wrecked. A dozen of my friends were lost, and I’ve the luck o’ the Lion, in my uncle’s words, to have been saved myself. I wish people would stop _dancing about_ and _talk_ about it!”

“I thought you’d feel that, but Father was insistent… you won’t tell him I’ve been _an insensitive boor_ again, will you?”

_Quite the repository of royal secrets_ , he thought, biting down hard on a grin. “Dorix is well, then?” he asked. Corin waggled his head.

“That cup of ale’s on the table,” he said comfortably. “And he won’t rest until he’s had the whole story of the wreck from you himself. Do you good to talk it out of your system, he said.”

“Corin, you have the best man in the kingdom for a servant!” Relieved beyond measure, Drinian dragged the astonished Prince into a brief, vehement hug. “And if you’d be so kind as to report his very wise words…”

“I’ll speak to Father.” The embrace was returned with all Corin’s newfound strength - enough to crush even Drinian’s solid chest. “And I ought to have done it sooner. You’ve looked lonely as an owl among those dour old crones he’s been sitting you with! They mean well enough I’m sure, but you should be outdoors and dancing with Anelia and I.”

“I’ll spare my feet your attempts at a jig, begging Your Highness’s pardon of course.”

Impossible to offend, Corin skittered a few manic steps, dragging his friend laughing in his wake. “Hurry away before Dorix sets the hounds on your heels!” he cackled, giving a shove to set Drinian stumbling toward the eastern stairs. “He’s wild with excitement about introducing his la – oh, confound it! Don’t tell him I spoiled his secret, will you? He’s a fair hand with a cutlass, and I’m still bruised all over from our last bout!”

*

Everyone remarked on the Lord Drinian’s high humour over supper, his mead poured by the slender hand of an old companion’s future bride. Dorix, sleek and smart in his crimson tabard, hovered among the gentlemen ushers, glowing with glee when his graceful Luna’s duties earned the very smile from His Grace of Etinsmere that he remembered as his shipmate Drin’s.

With the ease of long experience they communicated in nods, winks and grins that made even the simpering presence of the Lady Sorina at his left hand bearable. Only when the party rose, forming into a long crocodile to follow the royal family down to the lawn in readiness for a triumphal firework display commanded to close the peace celebrations, did he discover they had been observed.

“Your friend settles well ashore,” King Nain remarked mildly, materialising from the shelter of a prettily manicured copse. Drinian chuckled.

“I never doubted he would, Sire. Dorix was always a reluctant sailor! Had he but gone willingly, I’ll wager he’d have become as much a slave to the sea as I.”

Though darkness swallowed the familiar clasp of the Royal hands, he heard the small smack of the lips that often accompanied it. “Then Corin spoke truth? Your recent _painful experience_ has not diminished your passion for the sailor’s life?”

“I doubt anything up to drowning could do that!” he burst out, startled into complete frankness. A flabby hand rested at his elbow.

“Aye, my son has confessed his misdeeds to me,” Nain admitted comfortably. “And I believe in turn, I should admit mine to you.”

Dark head tipped, Drinian watched the kindly, well-lined face crease into a wry smile that was deepened by a lantern’s flare among the trees. “At the ardent plea of your concerned aunt, I instructed that no word of your ship’s dreadful fate be spoken in your presence. Messire Dorix protested: and I see he was correct! Your uncle did grumble, but at the pleading of his wife…”

Amusement broke through the awkwardness. Drinian barked out a genuine laugh. “More likely the browbeating!” he cried. Nain’s eyebrows disappeared into his fringe. 

“It was kindly meant, my Lord,” he chided. Drinian lifted a conciliatory hand.

“I never forget that Archenland’s Lady Westerwood is a Narnian Etinsmere born,” he soothed. “Being of the same blood, how can I not know her temper? I can only hope to share her mettle.” 

“I should say that has been proven many times in Our service.” Suddenly solemn the King took a pace forward, craning his neck to meet Drinian’s gaze direct. “And shall be again, I dare to hope.”

_Aunt would be proud_ , he considered wryly, feeling his courtier’s training take sufficient command of leaden limbs to sweep him through an elegant bow. “I am ever at Your Majesty’s service,” he said formally.

“Then perhaps… you tire of the land, I think?”

“Never sleep right without the taste o’ brine on my tongue, Sire.” The confession came on a rueful grin. “Harbour rot, they call it.”

Nain cleared his throat noisily. “My Lord Gurin and I were discussing this afternoon a vessel he has newly careened – that is the term? A schooner he says – the _Lady Carolina_. He tells me she sails like a… _witch_.”

Royal puzzlement knew no bounds. “This is a _good_ thing, I’m told?” he continued with a helpless hand-flap. Drinian nodded.

“Means she’s as fine a sailer as crew could want: though how any mortal can tell how a witch would go, my uncle’s never been able to explain.”

“And she has a stout crew, just missing one man.” Without touching his arm the King managed to guide him back into the wood, away from the babble of a festive crowd. “She might sail before the week’s out if you, my Lord, were to board as her captain.”

His throat dried out. Drinian’s mouth worked for several moments before a reluctant sound squeaked out. “Ca – _Captain?_ ” he echoed faintly. Nain offered a steadying arm.

“Do you need to sit?” he clucked, tugging ineffectually at a dark blue velvet sleeve. “I ought to have raised subject more delicately – forgive me!”

The King’s distress at least gave a focus for Drinian’s wandering mind. “Not at all Sire, I was just – _command?_ I never dreamed so soon…”

“Turned eighteen a few weeks ago, I believe?” Reassured he had not caused a permanent snapping of his companion’s wits, Nain relaxed into a chuckle, steering him back into the dancing light of the booming display exploding colourfully above the castle. Cheers and applause rang in the wake of every rocket’s starry burst, but Drinian neither saw nor heard the exultant conclusion of the week’s celebrations. 

“The survivors of the _Retribution_ all sang the same song: she should never have been left to fall into ruin had the Mate been in command! The men of the _Tiger_ adored you - no false modesty now, young man, you’re as natural a seaman as ever sailed! Not my words, but those of one we both knew well: Captain Ram.”

The night might conceal it, but Drinian felt the heat of a blush bring a dark stain to his neck. “A compliment higher than the offer of command, I daresay,” said Nain kindly. “And one I’ve read echoed in every account of your service these past eight years. ‘Tis hardly the banner you dreamed of sailing under I know…”

_Hang it!_

But for frank acknowledgement of that bitterest disappointment, Drinian was sure he could have concealed it better. “Archenland gave a home and a place to a frightened orphan, Sire,” he grated, wishing he could sound as grateful as he felt with half the grit of the Barwell Shoals lodged at the back of his throat. “I’ll be proud to command under her banner.”

“Then you accept? _Excellent!_ Dear Dar will be quite beside himself when he hears.” His back was pounded with unanticipated vigour before his hand was wrung in a grasp to match. Gingerly shaking out abused fingers behind his back, Drinian managed another stately bow.

“After Your Majesty’s many kindnesses to my family I’d be an ingrate indeed to refuse! And she’s almost fit for sea, you said…”

“You have leave to join your ship at the earliest moment, Captain,” Nain assured him, the emphasis on the most familiar of words making Drinian’s heart skip hard. “However, I _would_ take it as a personal kindness if you could ensure she’s back in port within the month.”

“The _Lady Carolina_ is Your Majesty’s to command.” Impulsive and insouciant, the words bubbled irrepressibly onto Drinian’s tongue. “I promise I shan’t run away with her, Sire.”

The most generous of monarchs was still chortling an hour after when, the fireworks all finally shot away, he shooed his giddy court gabbling with excitement to their beds.


	57. Fifty-Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A ship of his own. Drinian has dreamed of it for as long as he can remember, but how will reality compare?

On the tail of a sleepless night the chorus of “Safe sailing, Captain Drinian!” and “Good luck, Captain!” that accompanied him through Anvard’s gates held a distinctly dream-like quality. His mount’s hoofbeats muffled, Drinian spurred into a canter across the rolling hills with a high heart and a smile permanently fixed to his lips. _Captain Drinian._ The name must surely belong to someone else.

By the time the flat expanse of the Great Desert shimmered onto the horizon and the stench of Winding Arrow’s glutinous mud flats wafted into his nose, the fluffy cloud of childish glee had abated. With every stride he felt another chilly drip of dread trickle, settling like week-old bilge water in the pit of his stomach. He had dreamed of his own command since the nursery at Etinsmere but this…

Reality, he discovered, was an entirely different matter.

His mouth was dry, while his palms slipped damply on the reins. The churn of anticipation and raw terror in his gizzard made him queasy. Becoming an officer had seemed as natural as growing, but assuming complete command of a gleaming schooner and her experienced, sceptical crew…

Self-doubt. The enemy of any captain, so the Lord Tirian had said; and so the sad case of _Conspiracy Kar_ had proved. Reining his mount to a stop at the harbour wall, Drinian wondered if the captain had ever lived that really escaped it.

Giving his tunic’s hem a firm tug he dismounted, passed Scimitar to the care of a loitering groom and almost jumped from his skin at the lad’s respectful “See ‘im well-‘andled, Captain, Sir!” A smart line of vessels lay against the harbour wall, their gangplanks lowered and their companies crawling about the decks: and there, looking much bigger than he had expected at the seaward end of the quay, with her stylised female prow sculpture aiming an accusing finger to the river’s mouth, stood the _Lady Carolina_ , her hull gleaming and her unpatched sail flapping against the mast. 

His ship.

Unhindered by a command from above, his feet carried Drinian closer, eyes narrowing in a practised assessment that flowed from bowsprit to sternpiece and back again. Not a new vessel by any means, yet bright as a princess’s hairpin, the schooner bobbed lazily at anchor, half a dozen industrious figures visible above deck where the sweet, sickly smell of bubbling tar alerted the newcomer to a rapid caulking of weathered seams underway. 

Curling his hand around the gangway rail and resetting the satchel on his shoulder, Drinian inhaled a lungful of the cloying scent, using it to anchor himself against the unreality of the moment. Briskly (and with a confidence he was far from feeling) he strode along the wooden walk, counting off the seconds to the inevitable, utterly shocking hail.

“Captain on deck!”

How many times had he jumped to that cry, trying not to turn and gawk as the _Lady Carolina’s_ men did? Bashful defiance raised his chin just in time, as from the corner of his eye he detected the rapid approach of a nut-brown elf hastily scrubbing his hands against a battered leather smock. “Welcome aboard, Captain! My name is Jorix - the Mate.”

“A pleasure, Jorix.” There was a moment’s awkwardness: his proffered hand met with a smart salute before being taken in a brisk, strong shake. “Our lady’s a fair credit to you. Freshly refitted, I’m told?”

“Aye Sir. We finished the rig and hoisted the new sail two days ago.” Though his eye-level was barely above Drinian’s ribcage Jorix could not have stood taller, positively glowing with pride. Not, his new Captain gathered, in the compliment: more in the reason for it. “Served two years aboard her under Captain Nor, and while I’ll grant there’s a touch o’ bias, I’ll say she’s the finest old girl in the fleet! Shall I muster the men, Sir?”

“No.” The craft rocked soothingly beneath his boots, her motion and her Mate’s cheerful self-assurance together enough to make his fragile confidence soar. “Don’t disturb them from their business, Jorix. Perhaps a tour of the ship?”

“Gladly, Captain.” He was being assessed no less enquiringly, and when a broad smile broke over the other man’s thin face Drinian discerned he too had passed the initial test. “We’ll be done with the caulking by sunset, Boson tells me. We’re half-provisioned and watered, so a few hours can have us fit for sea if…”

“We’ve consent for a fortnight’s cruise before I’m summoned to make account of myself at Anvard.” The man efficiently varnishing the foot of the mast twitched violently on the name, and with a wink to his deputy Drinian halted. “His Majesty will be pleased to hear his ship’s kept well-weathered, I daresay,” he finished mildly. Jorix cleared his throat.

“This here’s Delmar, Captain. Served aboard since the press swept him up four years ago and not needed a punishment in the last three, so he says.”

“Nor the next three, I hope.” Cool under a purse-lipped stare Drinian extended his hand, incapable of judging which of his companions was the more flabbergasted by the cordiality. Delmar gave him a gap-toothed grin.

“Do me level best, Sir,” he said solemnly. Drinian tossed a lazy salute.

“I’ll not ask for more,” he said, lifting the words enough for the curious to hear. “Done the yardarm already, I suppose?”

“Finished up this mornin’ if you’re thinkin o’ runnin’ the ratlines Sir.”

“Were this not my best tunic I’d be halfway there already! You’ve a man at the top I see, Jorix?”

“Aye, Sir.” For the first time the Mate looked apprehensive. Drinian clapped him lightly on the shoulder. 

“Good. Always best to keep ‘em alert, even in a friendly port,” he approved. “Once we’re done with the tour, I’ll drop this uncomfortable weight in the cabin and pay him a visit. Pity my telescope’s still in Barwell!”

“We’ll find a glass to loan I’m sure, Sir.” Discipline held mirth on the end of Jorix’s tongue while Delmar, his collar unmarked by bright buttons, grinned freely. “Will you sleep ashore tonight?” the Mate added more quietly, starting forward at his commander’s slight nod. Drinian laughed.

“Not if the cabin’s fit for a hammock to be slung!” he exclaimed. Farther aft, an appreciative rumble rose. Jorix raised a sharp-pointed brow. 

“You’d not prefer a cot, Sir?”

“Certainly not.” Only aboard _Retribution_ had he slept contained in the wooden beams of an officer’s box, and every night Drinian had yearned for the liberty of his old bedding. Unquestioning, Jorix snapped his fingers and a lumbering bronze giant with the rolling gait of the long-time mariner stepped up in answer.

“Have the Captain’s hammock swung if you please, Zarn,” he instructed, holding the man with a lift of the hand. “Captain…”

“A pleasure, Zarn.” Forewarned, the man had a hand ready to be shaken, his grasp more delicate than expected in so enormous a creature. “You’ve served some time?”

“Eight years, Cap’n.”

“Same as myself. Do we have no greenhorns aboard I should be wary of?”

“Nearest ‘re the brothers, Sir – up caulkin’ on the fo’c’sle. Not a year yet – still spew their guts at the first sight of a storm.”

Rolling his eyes, Drinian dismissed the man to his duties. “You’ve a confident company Jorix,” he observed. “Speaks well of my predecessor – and of you!”

“A fine man, Captain Nor, Sir – gone ashore for the sake of his wife and four children. Five reasons for a man to stay afloat, so most o’ the company say!”

“And I’d likely agree with them! Shall we meet these weak-bellied brothers?”

He ought, he chastised himself later, to have been prepared by the Mate’s half-grin. “Bar and Barin, Captain,” Jorix announced when the two slight, sleek brown-haired sailors turned with matched smiles and identical salutes. “Born two minutes apart, and not been farther from each other since.”

“Which is how the press caught both at once, I imagine?” Scrutinising with the discretion needful was hardly easy before an amused audience of subordinates all gathered to enjoy the Old Man’s discomfort. Bar (presumably the elder) laughed.

“Got us worked out already, Cap’n,” he admitted, rubbing a smear of tar into his thigh before accepting the offered hand. “Fell right lucky comin’ aboard _Carolina_ , mind.”

“Aye, feel right at ‘ome with ‘er now,” Barin chimed in. “An’ don’t go listenin’ to that bletherin’ oaf Zarn, Cap’n! We’re proper good seamen now, i’n’t we, Mate?”

“The Captain will judge for himself I’m sure.” Jorix appeared faintly scandalised by the younger twin’s cocksure speech. Drinian rested a calming hand on his arm. 

“The first squall that we strike, I’ll wager,” he joked, turning from their chuckles to continue his tour. “The more ready they are speaking to me now, the better,” he added, pausing at the foot of the forward ladder as the best way of whispering the reassurance without a bend of the back to make it obvious. Jorix shivered visibly through a sigh of relief.

“They’re stout enough fellows Sir, but I feared… Captain Nor was sometimes thought a tad _familiar_ with his crew.”

“Then they’ll be accustomed to my manners already.” The discovery heartened him more than Drinian quite liked. “We’ll find Boson below checking provisions, I suppose?”

“Aye, Sir.” Taking the hint with alacrity, Jorix led the way into the cool gloom of the schooner’s belly, whooping a hearty hail as he went. “Tarin!”

From behind a pair of aged oak barrels popped a mop of snowy hair attached to a brow more wrinkled than a year-old prune. “This here’s Boson, Captain,” Jorix announced. “Claims to be fifty and in service thirty years, but the men believe he’s just being modest.”

“Mate’s got to ‘ave a mouth on ‘im, Cap’n.” When he grinned, Tarin’s eyes almost disappeared into the deep grooves carved out on either side. Drinian liked him immediately. “’specially when ‘e’s as short as ours! Stand on ‘im without seein’, I could!”

“I’ll mind my step,” Drinian pledged, unsurprised to find his hand being heartily pumped by the only being he had ever met smaller than Jorix himself. _Stand Boson on Mate’s shoulders and they’d barely top me by half a head!_

While they laughed he scanned their surroundings: noting the chest containing salt beef and the rum cask secured aft, carefully positioned as it should be beneath Boson’s hammock; and the dusty space beside it were a further barrel should stand. “Watering parties?” he enquired. Tarin nodded.

“Casks are on shore. Just waitin’ for the word t’ take me parties, Sir.”

“Mate assures me we’re fit to sail on the dawn tide. Unless there’s a squabble to be had with the quartermaster?”

“Not this time, Cap’n.” Tarin sounded despondent. Drinian gave him a hearty clout. 

“There’ll be plenty of them to come, I daresay! I’ll walk into town with your party if you’re agreeable? What possessions I have to bring aboard are at my uncle’s house off the square.”

“Glad o’ the company, Sir.” Unfazed, Tarin vaulted for the forward ladder, already hollering for his choice of men. “Zarn! Hanlin! Captain’s walkin’ to the well wi’ us, look lively there, lads!”

Where Jorix would have followed, Drinian held him back. “Give them a moment to accustom themselves to the idea,” he advised, amused by the little man’s obvious relief. “They need to take my temper, as I do theirs.”

“Reckon they’ll think themselves fortunate already, if I might be bold, Sir.” Accepting the wisdom of his words, Jorix ambled lazily to the aft ladder, politely holding the hatch for his superior. “They were fair troubled at Captain Nor’s going – quite thought themselves due a martinet after so friendly a fellow! You’ve not the look of a tyrant about you - begging your pardon, Captain.”

Dismissing the apology with an airy wave, Drinian poked his head into the compact box closest to the deck, pleased to see a hammock already swinging close to the sternport. “Tyranny ruins a company Jorix. I’ve seen it done,” he said amiably, tilting his dark head to the light breeze as he stepped by onto the poop. “And I’ll see no man flogged unless he’s earned it. Thank you, Bar.”

The seaman holding the gangway rail steady for the Captain’s hand frankly goggled. Jorix’s indrawn breath hissed between clenched teeth. “How did you know which I am, Cap’n?” the elder twin asked in awe. Drinian allowed himself a rich chuckle.

“You’ve a smear o’ pitch on your right leg,” he replied lightly, pointing. With every other crewman staring at his stained hose, Bar burst out laughing.

“Sharp eyes, Sir,” he admitted over the appreciative murmur of a dozen watching men. 

“P’raps we should run a line down yer arm,” Tarin joked from the wharf, where he and two seamen awaited with their barrels. “Took Cap’n Nor a month t’ find a way of tellin’ you beggars apart!”

“And I think your brother has a small bump about the nose.” With the crook of a finger he had Barin alongside, bashfully rubbing a thumb over the appendage in question. “Ran into another man’s fist, by the look of you.”

“That, or a strumpet’s door,” Jorix growled. Drinian shrugged. 

“The result’s the same, Mate,” he said mildly, savouring the good-humoured caws among his crew. “Only – so long as the damage was done in the throes of enthusiasm, not running away without payment. I’ll have no poor payers aboard my ship! Boson, if your men are ready…”


	58. Fifty-Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First impressions are favourable. It’s a promising sign as the Lady Carolina weighs anchor for Captain Drinian’s first cruise in command.

He stepped onto the poop in the soft light of a promising morning to find his crew all alert and awaiting his command. “Will you take the helm, Captain?” Jorix asked formally. Pursing his lips, Drinian nodded.

_Another test_. The Old Man (absurd when he was the youngest man aboard, but sailors must be sailors) seems personable enough; but what of his seamanship? 

Letting his hands glide down the top spokes of the wheel, he closed his eyes and let the sensation of the vessel’s light roll flood him. This challenge at least, he could meet with full confidence.

“Man the capstan! Oarsmen, stand by to seaward! Topmen aloft!”

The orders fell naturally, his voice strong enough to echo the length and breadth of the _Lady Carolina_ as her anchor was winched from the muddy riverbed and her bulk began to quiver with the promise of freedom. Letting the wheel slide against his leathered palms Drinian narrowed his eyes, frowning at the plashing waters ahead. 

The shoals between Barwell and the Winding Arrow’s mouth had been the humiliation of many a nervous skipper, even with the river at its height and a clear sky to light the shifting shades of the surface as a guide. Any hesitancy on his part now would be noted and discussed below deck for months, he knew, to come.

Yet it did not trouble him. With her sail curved and her keel in the current the _Lady Carolina_ positively danced to his lightest touch, heeling easily through the archipelago at the river’s mouth to break free into open sea. “Let fall!” he bellowed, needing no more than the shadows that tumbled from the yardarm to know the order obeyed. “She handles well, Jorix,” he added more quietly, sliding a speculative glance to the Mate hovering nearby.

“Fancy you’ve got the knack with her already, Sir,” came the respectful reply. Shielding his eyes against the sun, Jorix grinned up at his much taller captain. “Comes to hand lighter than those galleons you’re used to, I’ll wager!”

“Aye, though she’ll never be as steady in more than the easiest swell.” Men were moving confidently about their business, needing no word from any officer to guide their way. “We’ll steer out around Galma, then tack south into the Bight. The last pirate raid was reported to have come from Calormene waters, I remember?”

“Aye, Captain.” At his gesture Jorix summoned the curly-headed Hanlin to take station at the helm. “I’ll have the grindstone hauled up before we turn south, Sir? Just in case.”

From Hanlin’s grim smile, the Captain gathered the _Lady Carolina’s_ men would not want for stomach, should he lead them into a fight.

*

With every hour the anxieties that had accompanied him up the gangway receded. Cheerful men stepped lively at his every word, and snatches of song and laughter drifted from the fo’c’sle every night as he took his leisurely tour before bed. Men smiled in greeting, never cowering when he loomed unexpectedly in their lee. Each time he raised his voice in a crisp command, he felt it.

Mutual certainty. Their confidence in the Captain to lead them right matched by his in their capability. It thrummed in every bellowed shanty to speed the hauling of the halyards, until he could feel it in the very fabric of the ship itself. 

On the eighth day, having rounded Galma and tacked south against the wind toward the warmer waters of the Bight, Tarin shuffled diffidently to join him on the fo’c’sle as Zarn and the brothers cast out their fishing lines. “The fellows was wonderin’ if you’d allow Delmar t’ bring out ‘is fiddle after dinner, Sir,” he announced, almost challenging. 

“So we’ve a musician in the company, Boson!” Drinian exclaimed, arching a sooty brow at the cackling that arose by the starboard rail. “Too kind a term?” he questioned.

“Grace the King’s ballroom itself ‘e would, Cap’n – or so the prancin’ ninny reckons,” Zarn groused through a massive grin. “Still, ‘e scrapes out a jig well enough, if y’ve no objection…”

“None, so long as we’ve fresh fish for dinner.”

“Strikes an ‘ard bargain the Cap’n, dun’t ‘e lads?”

“Seems fair enough t’ me, Boson.” Deftly reeling in a threshing sole, Zarn gave his neighbour a nudge Drinian guessed was meant to be surreptitious. Careful to hide his smile, he directed Tarin down to the maindeck before him. 

“So long as their work’s done, the men may take whatever leisure they choose after dinner,” he said quietly. “I’ve seen no hoarding of grog, and no more than a crossing of cusses between brothers since coming aboard. Unless the Admiral brings his lady to visit, there’s none will be offended by a few bawdy verses from the fo’c’sle.”

“Few o’ them’ll keep the lady a dozen leagues away I reckon, Sir; aye, an’ the Admiral ‘isself by the look of ‘im!” Much amused by the notion Tarin trotted at his side toward the poop, waiting until Drinian had dismissed the helmsman and placed his own hand lovingly on the frame. “D’ you mind an old man askin’ a rude question, Sir? ‘s just somethin’ I know’s got the company a mite puzzled…”

“Ask by all means, but I’ll make no promise of an answer.” Keeping the words light against the tightening sensation in his chest, Drinian covered his steering hand with the other, absently appreciating the smoothness of well-worn gold on his middle finger. Tarin’s throat worked convulsively.

“‘s your accent, Cap’n,” he blurted, blushing so hard not even his weather-beaten complexion could conceal it. “Thirty years I’ve been at sea an’ even I can’t bloomin’ place it, if you’ll pardon me the bluntness, Sir!”

Relief expanded his lungs, and Drinian’s roar of delight ran the whole length of the ship. “Lion’s Mane man, is that all?” he cried, thumping him so hard on the back not all Tarin’s long seafaring could preserve a steady balance. “You never made landfall on the northern coasts o’ Narnia, if you’ve never heard an accent like mine!”

“Can’t say I ever did, Cap’n.” With a sheepish grin and a roll of stinging shoulders Tarin lolled against the rail, unease forgotten: a signal, Drinian gathered, to his associate Jorix who slipped discreetly from the hatch to their side. “Them clipped vowels don’t belong to no Archenlandish province I’ve ever ‘eard of, but they’re not Galmian neither… at a rare loss we were t’ place you, Sir!”

“Etinsmere.” Saying it tugged something hard against his ribcage. “So, the accent remains!” he marvelled.

“You’ve been from home some time I assume, Captain?” Jorix was wary he noticed, but just secure enough in his commander’s good temper to ask all the same. Swallowing hard, he forced himself to be worthy of the man’s trust.

“Ten years this autumn,” he confirmed, focussing on their shocked faces rather than the mailed fist with its grip on his heart. “I forget, my history’s not known here as it was aboard my previous ships.”

“Forgive us, Captain. Our intention was never to pry…”

Another man’s distress snapped him abruptly from the contemplation of his own. “No apologies, Jorix, and I understand the men’s curiosity well enough,” he said gently, the sincerity of the words a pleasant surprise. “I fled Narnia as a boy on King Caspian’s death and found sanctuary with my aunt and her husband in your country, under the kindness of King Nain. And in Archenland I’ll stay, so long as the current tyrant wears my home’s crown.”

The two little men shuffled uncomfortably. “Right sorry to ‘ear of your troubles, Cap’n,” said the Boson, one eye on the poop ladder. “But you’re a proper asset t’ our kingdom an’ that’s a fact! If you’d sooner the fellows don’t know... you’d be the Lord Dar’s nephew by marriage, I s’pose? Jorix ‘ere’s too much of a puppy to ’ve known the old Admiral, but I remember it bein’ said he’d took a Narnian wife...”

“My father’s sister.” Unthinking he lifted his top hand, letting sunlight flare off the tiny diamond chip that formed Etinsmere’s guiding star in the corner. “Satisfy the men’s curiosity as to my heritage by all means, Tarin. Better they have it direct than from the taverns o’ Barwell!”

“Thank ‘ee, Cap’n.” No need to elaborate further. And at least, Drinian reflected resignedly, there had been time to establish his credentials as a sailor before the truth of his landward identity became known.

*

He absented himself from deck that night, brooding in his cabin while the crew frolicked and sang on the fo’c’sle. Until it was snatched away, he had not even noticed how comfortably the cloak of anonymity had settled on his shoulders.

The nerves he thought behind him resurfaced at daybreak, like a swarm of sleepy bees stirring in his blood. Deliberately selecting a scuffed jerkin with his loose shirt and woollen hose Drinian hesitated with his hand on the hatch, eyes closed for the length of a last calming breath. The poop was quiet, the ship rolling languidly through tranquil seas. _What would I give for a kraken off the bow!_

Barin stood at the tiller, shielding his eyes to better observe something skimming on the surface of the Bight. “Dolphins!” Drinian exclaimed with delight, starting forward to stare at the dozen or so silvery shapes flying from the waves around the keel. Barin beamed.

“Right pleased t’ see us I reckon Cap’n,” he said cheerfully, stepping respectfully aside to grant the newcomer room at the wheel. “Brought to us by ‘is fiddling, so Delmar says.”

“In the hope of drowning out his scrapings?” The quip won a chuckle. Slouching casually at his side, the dawn watchman showed no sign of concern or – far worse – awe in his Captain’s presence. “Although I’ve not heard _The Plea O’ The Pauper Sailor_ sung so well in many a year.”

“Aye, personal experience for some o’ the lads – i’n’t that right, Zarn?” Barin chortled. “You won’t stay on deck an’ join us though, Cap’n?”

“I thought it best not to trample Boson’s tender sensibilities so soon, Barin.” Raising his voice enough for Tarin to catch allowed half the crew to hear, and all down the Lady Carolina’s graceful length shoulders heaved in silent appreciation. “Another evening, when he’s better accustomed to my impertinence perhaps...”

“Always welcome, Sir. If I’m not needed at the tiller, Cap’n...”

“Off to your hammock with you.” The significance of the invitation warmed him to the core, and it took all the lordly schooling of his infant years to keep the relieved smile from Drinian’s full lips. “Good morning, Jorix. You’ve noticed our company?”

“The men think ‘em a sign of good luck, Captain.” Bustling along the maindeck without a hair from its place despite a stiffening breeze, Jorix spared their inquisitive companions an indifference glance. “You’ll have us continue running south another day, Sir?”

“Stretch down as far as we dare before turning for home. I’ve not abandoned hope of sighting those pirates yet!”

“The fellows enjoyed their rough ball last night,” the Mate commented, turning to rest his back against the rail. “Had you, ah, given thought to the matter o’ _leave_ , now we’re turning for home?”

Drinian shaded his eyes from the sun, pursing his lips at the timid enquiry. “I’ll be ten days at least at Anvard, so… two companies, four days apiece I think. Boson can manage the ship without us both for long enough for you to take your leisure in my absence.”

“Aye, Captain.”

Arching a brow, Drinian angled himself away from the wheel and toward his subordinate, noting the bitten lip and the knotting fingers. “Concerned we’ll have a dozen desertions, Mate?” he wondered. Jorix gave himself a visible shake.

“Not at all, Sir! I’d have advised that very pattern myself. I was simply surprised…”

Captain Nor, for all his easy familiarity with the men, would have requested his officers’ opinion Drinian realised, startled. “Fancy I’ve the temper of the crew by now, Jorix,” he said kindly. “And should I be wrong, and a man think to run, the fault will be mine alone! You’ll draw up the lists, of course? You’ll know the alliances among our ruffians far better than I.”

He thought it was relief that ghosted over elfin features. “Gladly, Captain,” Jorix affirmed, hesitating when he would have turned his full attention back to their course. “And – well, begging your pardon Sir, but there’s no risk of a runner among _your_ crew! His Grace of Etinsmere may pay respects at Anvard, knowing Captain Drinian’s name will hold order amongst his _Carolinas_. I’ll be off to my duties then, Sir.”

*

_Captain Drinian._

The name, so strange when applied in the coquettish tones of an Anvard lady, felt natural to the man standing on the poop late that night, alone with his _Lady Carolina_ pliant under a caressing hand. As if it had always belonged to him.

The Lord of Etinsmere. Drin the sailor. Both of those beings had inhabited his person as it grew, each in his own world and a stranger in the other’s, with a grinding friction ever-present at their join. Always there, on the edge of his consciousness, had been that tension. That uncertainty.

No longer. 

Serene in attending his duties all day, he had recognised it. Pausing to call an order; to share a joke; to offer a word of reassurance to a hardened tar caught out by a sudden luff of wind off the port bow. It was natural as breathing, a certainty he never paused to ponder or to doubt. He had his place. His purpose.

The Narnian nobleman and the scapegrace young sailor must be within him, Drinian acknowledged, their trials and experience the foundation from whence this new creature had sprung. Yet they were not – never had been – _him._

He laughed aloud from the sheer joy of it, the sound flowing out into the endless tranquillity of the moonlit night. How foolish – how egotistical - those early misgivings seemed now! 

He was Captain Drinian. All unknowing, he always had been. Not a title, nor even a name. Simply who – or what - he was meant to be.


	59. Fifty-Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back at Anvard, there’s a surprise or two in store for our gallant Captain. Not all of them are pleasant...

For the first time he felt no jarring sense of dislocation in trotting through Anvard’s familiar wide-open gates, mildly startled by the bustle and excitement awaiting in the compact courtyard. The sailor Drin had recoiled from the elaborate formality of Lord Barsin’s official greeting, but Captain Drinian merely inclined his head and murmured the obligatory courtier’s reply, even as he winked at the groom with a hand on Scimitar’s silver muzzle. “Your cruise was fruitful, I trust?” the old Chamberlain croaked, placing a guiding hand at the younger man’s elbow. Drinian laughed.

“Lacking only a pirate as a prize, my Lord,” he said lightly, stepping back to grant Barsin access to the tapestried hall before him, where a dozen glittering figures in velvet and satin loitered with rapt gazes turned to the head of the central stair. “Our lookouts caught a glimpse, but the blackguards ran for shallow water at the sight of us.”

“You’ll have better sport next time, I’ll wager!” boomed a familiar voice from the far corner of the square room. Hobbling forward with stick waving – to the alarm of two jewel-and-feather-decked matrons in his path – the Lord Dar beamed indulgently at his startled nephew, launching forward into a bear-hug that made Drinian stagger and both men yelp quickly-strangled curses. “Command suits you. Katharina! Wife, does the Captain not seem _taller_ to you?”

“And broader, though I’ve seen that officer’s tunic enough to know there’s no change in the fit.” Gliding smoothly in his rolling wake, Lady Westerwood offered her dimpling cheek for his kiss. Astonished by the public affection Drinian dipped to give it, even more amazed to find himself being squeezed in a brief, urgent embrace. “Your uncle is right, my dear: your rank _does_ become you! And I never thought to be so pleased to see your sea-tan back.”

“I’ll have you stand my witness Barsin, my lady agrees I’m right!” Clapping the Chamberlain hard on the back, Dar almost brought them both to their knees. Nimbly Lady Westerwood skipped forward, offering the unfortunate recipient of her husband’s high spirits an arm.

“ _Do_ remember, Captain, that not all backs are as sturdy as those of your crew,” she counselled, and it was truly a wonder to observe her mirth in courtly dignity’s inelegant slip away. “Now, we have our rooms in the Northern Tower as usual. You’ll want to wash and change before we’re summoned.”

It was no less an order than any he had bawled from the _Lady Carolina’s_ poop that morning. With a smile and a bow to be divided among the gawpers, Drinian sprinted up the stairs and away to his accustomed room, trusting to his aunt’s good judgement that the garments already hanging there would suit what had the look of a much grander occasion than he had come prepared for.

*

The advantage of their shared Etinsmere colouring ensured at least he avoided the humiliation of many another, Drinian decided, easing his way through the peacock throng that whispered and shoved at the Throne Room’s great carved doors. If his battered brown leather and soft grey wool were forbidden him, better crimson velvet and black satin than the gaudy mix of canary yellow and iridescent green sported by at least three of his peers!

“Said to be the Princess’s favourite colours,” Aunt murmured, taking advantage of his greater height to sidle unnoticed into his side. Drinian’s sooty brows drew tight.

“I never saw her wearing them!”

“Said by her brother,” the lady amended. His hoot of laughter turned every head, and she never even flinched.

Later, he would berate himself for missing so obvious a warning. 

The heavy doors drew open and the melee surged. Drinian caught his aunt by the arm, protecting her from the worst jostling by petitioners scurrying for a place close to the raised dais. “Infernal scrimmage!” he growled. “The King won’t – oh!”

“My lords, ladies and gentlemen all.” His bright hair slicked down and contained within a gossamer gold circlet, Prince Corin stood four-square in front of his father’s throne with one hand rested delicately on his sword hilt. “Pray silence! In the name of my royal father, I command the following gentlemen to step forth!”

Around him, Drinian caught the small vibration of a hundred indrawn breaths. Head held high, bright hazel eyes fixed on the minstrels’ gallery over the main doors, _Corin Cracked-Pate_ radiated a self-conscious dignity worlds removed from his usual rambunctious ease. Even the sister three paces to his left seemed stilled, her glittering charisma subdued by the unsuspected force of his.

“Captain Hastrix! Messire Par! Captain Kolin! Captain Vissar! Messire Sharin! Captain Drinian!”

Only the discreet pressure of a hand against his hip propelled him into motion. Bewildered beyond any kind of alarm, Drinian allowed a path to open between him and the dais. _Captain Kolin? Formerly of the Tiger? What in the Lion’s name’s afoot?_

A dozen men in all clustered at the steps: all of them wearing, he noticed with relief, the same confused air as himself; and all proclaimed by their rolling steps to be men of the sea. His first commander, unchanged by the years beyond the deepened lines around the mouth to emphasise its droop, offered a brisk nod of acknowledgement and a raised brow. Half an eye on Corin, assessing the few steps down to the floor as another man might a rampaging pirate gang, Drinian returned the gesture.

“Gentlemen, pray accompany me His Majesty’s Privy Apartments!” the Prince boomed. A smattering of applause rose from the assembled courtiers. “I’m sorry, Drinian,” he added under his breath. “Father’s positively determined to surprise you! Sister!”

As smooth as if she rode on rails, Anelia glided to take her brother’s arm. “Don’t look so _worried_ , Captain,” she added, passing amid a cloud of rosewater perfume and silk to match. Kolin, positioning himself securely in his former crewman’s lee, huffed a sceptical breath.

“You have _grown_ somewhat since we last met, Captain Drinian,” he muttered. Drinian bit his lip.

“Else you’ve shrunk, Sir,” he whispered back. “Not changed otherwise that I can see.”

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t return the compliment?”

“Gladly.” Either the war or his welcome at Anvard had softened old resentments. Kolin chuckled. 

“And though it hardly needed a seer’s gifts, ‘tis a pleasure to see my prophecies come true. You’ve the _Lady Carolina_ I’m told?”

“Aye, Sir. You were commanding _Anvard_ , last I heard?”

“Perhaps I should seek out Lord Coltrix and thank him,” Kolin confided. “I heard of the _Tiger’s_ fate. Too many good men gone!”

“I’m told that’s war, Captain.” Just her name brought the horror flooding back, the bloodied remains of his friends swimming before his eyes. Drinian took a steadying breath, stepping back to allow the senior captain first passage through a low, undecorated doorway at the end of a narrow corridor hung with faded tapestries. “Can’t say I’ll ever agree.”

“Indeed.” On a day of miracles, this was the greatest. Comradely, Kolin pressed his arm. “Your Majesty.”

“Gentlemen.” In the heart of his homely parlour, two dogs at his slippered feet and a stain on his tunic sleeve, King Nain looked more like a country gentleman than ever, a juddering contrast to his heir’s newfound regal poise. “Forgive the pomposity of your summons, but we’ve had too few occasions for grand ceremony in recent years. Captains – officers all. We are privileged to command you all, in recognition of loyal service rendered throughout the recent war: accept the honour of knighthood at Our hand!”

Never had he heard a silence so profound. It weighted down on Drinian’s shoulders, crushing the air from his lungs. For a few moments every man stood frozen; then, as one, they sank to their knees. 

“Well, well,” said the King, deeply moved. “The Prince will proclaim the award before dinner. The dubbing itself can follow once the announcement’s been made at Barwell. Rise, gentlemen! The Princess has arranged wine and wafers in my dining chamber, and we have much to talk about! Captain Drinian, you find your command to your liking? I declare, I never saw you looking better!”

“Very much so, Sire.” His legs never failed him in the worst of storms, but Drinian tested them warily in rising at the implicit invitation to lead at the King’s side. Nain glanced up, good humour quirking a deep furrow between his brows.

“I have you at a loss, my Lord!” he chortled, fairly dancing beneath a pointed arch into an airy room dominated by a long table, where his daughter stood ready with a dozen goblets and dainty plates. “’Tis a good king’s pleasure to reward faithful service, from wherever he may have it.”

“And Archenland’s great fortune to have such a sovereign, Sire.” Accepting a glass from Anelia he took a healthy swallow, hoping the sweet wine might drown the bitter bile coating his tongue. Nain sucked his lips hard into his mouth.

“There remains hope for Narnia in my nephew,” he volunteered, subtly drawing away from the giddiness of a group slowly gathering their wits. “But – forgive me! There’s a bruit spread from the borderlands. Probably a peddlar’s nonsense, and yet…”

“Sire?” Panic clawed his belly, and the excitable chattering of his companions struck his skull like a hail of arrows. “The Prince – Miraz dare not harm Prince Caspian?”

“Nay, not yet, but…” Pushing a hand through his salted fox-brush, Nain was visibly scrabbling for a politic phrase. “By the Lion, it pains me to say it! The Lady Prunaprisima – I will _not_ call her _queen_ – is hidden from the court, they say. Swollen, the tale goes, with child at last.”

“No.” An heir of Miraz’s body must be the end of every thing. Drinian sagged against the nearest wall, closing his eyes against nausea’s acid wave. “After so many barren years, it _cannot _be! Were _he_ to have a son...”__

____

____

“Archenland will suffer no harm to befall her Daughter’s child.” But Archenland was leagues away from the Telmarine palace, and no soothing word or honeyed tone could fly to deflect a blade in the night. “There were rumours once before, quickly disproven; and after so many years…”

“I won’t believe it!” Would, or could, not? Drinian dared not consider the question. “Narnia burdened with the offspring of a murdering usurper and that harridan – forgive me!” 

“If you’ll forgive my conveying this… fantastical rumour.” At a glance from her father the Princess hurried with more wine but he waved it away, knowing a brief stab of regret that alcoholic oblivion disagreed with him so strongly. “My son was adamant you should sooner hear privately than catch word by chance in the Great Hall, but I know the very notion of such disaster befalling poor Narnia must grieve you.”

“Caspian, not Narnia, Sire.” The wide-eyed boy with that untameable mop of golden curls must be long gone now, yet it was his visage Drinian imagined, contorted with agony under the blade’s final swipe. “My lands are lost to me, but his life…”

“Try not to dwell on it.” Years had passed since news from home had wounded him so deeply, and it was not for his burdened lands that Drinian bled now. It was the child, still barely of a man’s years. The friend whose cackle he still heard on the wind, though the places he had heard it were blurred by the comforting softness of time. “And - reassure me! My heir’s judgement…”

“Could hardly have been more accurate, Sire.” And showed a sensitivity Drinian had assumed quite lacking in his tactless but affectionate friend. “I’ll not believe it until there’s a babe in arms, but to have this tarradiddle from a stranger… no. Pray thank His Highness for his consideration.”

“Perhaps there’s hope for Corin yet,” Nain marvelled, the tension leaking from his posture now the worst was done. “And if the worst does come, my nephew may not be without partisans! Now, tell me! Are you not amazed to see your former captain amongst our company?”

“I doubt there’s an officer deserves the honour bestowed more, Sire!” Drinian protested. The King cleared his throat. Shuffled. He even blushed.

“Awkward business,” he muttered, angling himself away from the table in a way that forced Drinian to follow suit. “Has a _background_ , you know. Might have been knighted sooner but for…”

Politely, Drinian waited. The King emitted the oddest braying sound.

“With so many gentlemen knighted together, my son and daughter will attend the duties more often claimed by the officers of my household,” he announced brightly. From the other side of the room, Drinian could feel Captain Kolin bristling.

"Then we are the more greatly honoured, Your Majesty,” he said, lifting the words enough for every ear. Anelia dipped a delicate curtsy.

The Captain of the galleon _Anvard_ never moved.

“Of _course!_ ” he breathed, quite staggered by his own dim-wittedness. Half-forgotten, King Nain patted his arm. 

“ _Most_ embarrassing for the Deputy Chamberlain,” he sighed. “That _drooped lip_ is quite the family trait, and the ladies at the time _both_ made the most tremendous _fuss_. I believe poor Hastin has _a bad headache_ in the offing, but Corin promises on his honour that he shan’t drop the dubbing sword on anybody’s foot this time. More wine, Captain Vissar? Your company aboard _Lionwood_ will be bragging about Barwell ‘til winter once the proclamation reaches them, no doubt! How long have you commanded her now? Is it _seven_ years?"

*

Aunt Katharina dripped with more jewels than he had known Westerwood possessed, but her smile still outshone them as he knelt before their generous host three nights later, raven head bowed while the flat of the sword came down against his shoulders. “Arise, Sir Drinian: Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Lily,” the King intoned, delicately withdrawing the weapon and turning from Corin on his right to Anelia, stationed on his left.

The Princess took a small step forward, the bright silver-edged ribbon of the order laid across her extended palms. As the new knight obeyed his adoptive monarch’s instruction, her fingers dipped. The decoration’s V-shaped end tickled, featherish, against his crown. 

Under his sharpest look, her composure never faltered. It was all he could do to match her, squaring his shoulders and standing tall while her father pinned the shiny trinket into the sumptuous velvet of his ebony tunic and the Prince clasped the short furred mantle of the order around his shoulders, murmuring the appropriate response to Nain’s benevolent compliments. Only when he stepped backward, taking three long paces before sweeping through his deepest bow, did her mouth quirk in an admission of playful guilt.

“I must have _some_ amusement,” she argued when in her brother’s presence he teased her shocking want of decorous manners. “These ceremonies are so _dour!_ And for the most part the recipients are…”

“Drinian’s comrades,” Corin cut in indignantly. “ _Really,_ Anelia! I know you’re bored, but how often must Father say…”

She was away in a flouncing swirl of turquoise silk before he could finish. “Bother!” said Corin with feeling. “D’ you see how the world’s turned on its head, Drinian? Who ever thought _I_ should be the solemn royal child and _she_ … Papa is at a loss with her – truly at a loss!”


	60. Fifty-Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Times have changed since she was the dutiful royal child. Anelia is bored. What better distraction than a handsome young knight of the realm?

“Then Papa should find me a position better than being a pretty doll carried out to be petted!” she protested two days later when, with the grand formalities all done and the castle emptying of guests, they were free to change into less elaborate attire and amble beyond the garden wall to the shade of the orchards, the sugared sweetness of apple and pear blossoms dancing like a flurry of snow against her upturned face. “Corin has daily lessons in government. I have my needle, my music…”

“And half a dozen gallants making themselves look ridiculous dressing in your supposed _colours_.”

She punched his arm, her knuckles jolted more by the contact than his solid bicep. “Oh, Corin thinks that the best joke ever,” she said bitterly, giving the offended arm an apologetic rub. “And they’re a dwindling band now – my admirers. My _rebellious spirits_ outweigh the benefit of my sacred blood in the eyes of most proud fathers, Lion be praised!”

He ignored the oath. Anelia’s fingers curled with unlooked-for strength around his wrist. “I don’t suppose the _Lady Carolina_ has a berth for a ship’s boy?” she asked, only half in jest. Drinian laughed.

“You’ve the language for the position, but little enough else,” he parried, pleased by her answering grin. Anelia relinquished her bruising grip, letting her palm slide to rest against his. 

“I _ought_ to take that for a compliment,” she conceded, flicking the skirts of her simple linen gown at his legs. Drinian threw up his hands.

“Small wonder your swains cease their sighing if you’re always so chary of flattery,” he grumbled good-naturedly, plucking a sprig of pristine blossom from the nearest branch and presenting it with an exuberant flourish. Struggling to retain her sulky mien, the Princess tucked it behind her ear. “Perhaps if I’d ordered a yellow satin jerkin in place of this dull old leather thing…”

“I should have had to drop porridge on your shoulder at breakfast.” His teasing had its effect and Anelia cackled, giving the loose linen shirt exposed by his sleeveless tunic a sharp tug. “They think I _enjoy_ being primped and pushed into my jewels and satin kirtles; and perhaps I did, once! Now...”

“They call it _growing up_ , I daresay.” The air was sweet and heady with the promise of a fine summer to come. His ship lay ready off Barwell; his relations were cheerful and in good health. But for the shadow hanging over a friend unseen in ten years, Drinian could have called himself as happy as a lark. 

Anelia arched a shapely bay brow. “Some of us seem well suited to it,” she observed. “Oh, fie! Everyone exclaims at how well _Captain Drinian_ looks! You’re as different now as – as Corin, from the gangling uncomfortable exile we saw before!”

His head tipped, Drinian considered her impassioned words. “Perhaps I’ve a place now,” he mused, distracted by the enormity of the revelation from their passage through the orchard gate and into the overgrown wildflower meadows beyond. “Captain Sir Drinian has his titles by sword and seamanship, where that poor exile’s claim came by an empty name and the good nature of another realm’s king.”

“Does this mean you see Archenland as your home now?”

Caught up in his bedazzled thoughts, Drinian entirely missed the timid hope in the question. “My home’s the _Lady Carolina_ , insofar as I have one,” he said, kicking carelessly at the crumbling head of a dying bloom wilting down from its spindly stem. “I’ll be Lord of Etinsmere to my last breath Anelia, no matter the air it’s taken in, but perhaps…”

“We respected your situation more than you could yourself?” Her free hand trailing in the grass swaying up beyond her waist Anelia twisted, giving him a hard look. Drinian’s lips pursed.

“Perhaps,” he admitted. “I’m not resigned to it, you know. I’ll pine for Narnia to my dying day, if the worst should come…”

“Don’t think of it!” The heir himself could not have bettered that commanding tone, and Drinian was grateful for it, feeling the dark clouds recede before her wagging finger. “And you are not the man for _resignation_. Why, had my Cousin Caspian only a dozen Drinians at his elbow, he’d be King of Narnia before his next birthday!”

“Now who dispenses the flattery?” It warmed him more than he cared to admit, a counter to the chilly regret that still raised the fine hairs on his arms. Not a single rebellion in almost a decade. The nobility cowed. The commons submissive. Narnia, proud, defiant Narnia, quiescent within the usurper’s chains, and not a single man with the strength to try them. “Sixteen he’ll be, this summer. With the Lion’s luck, he might live long enough to see it!”

“How can anyone believe that virago with child after so long?” Snorting, unladylike, she might have fitted very well with his rowdy _Carolinas_ in that moment, and Drinian was sure he had never liked her better. “Nay, my Lord, this will be some trick to turn eyes from my cousin’s maturity. _You_ don’t believe it, do you?”

Goaded into candour, he burst out the first response unaccustomed tact had withheld in her father’s presence. “If he’s the courage to beget an heir on that shrieking termagant, Master Miraz has a stronger stomach than I! By the Lion’s Tail, I’d as lief take a serpent to my bed as _my Lady Prunaprismia’s Grace!_ ”

“We hear he’s an unappealing specimen: even by the standards of the Conqueror’s heirs, which I’m told are not set high,” she fluted, dipping her lashes too late to shield the mischief dancing in her large dark eyes. “It may be my Lord Miraz has little of the _choice_ available to a better-favoured man.”

“Aye, they’re a fair match: as querulous, ill-tempered and resentful as each other.” Her palm danced light as air against his, and when he slanted a glance her way Drinian found himself being studied with the brazen admiration of a Galmian quayside wench. “Lion help us all if there ever _is_ a brat o’ that union!”

“There shall not be! The Princess of Archenland will not permit it!”

“Would the whole world bowed to your whims as this court does!” Imperious and infantile in equal measure, she fairly forced the merriment from him and Drinian succumbed to the same childishness, catching her by both hands and swinging around, farther and farther from the castle until the grass waved higher than his hip. Anelia threw back her head and laughed, shaking her braid loose.

“Does it not? My Lord Horstin will be most disappointed!”

“I’ll not tell him if Your Highness shan’t.” Dizzy and breathless they slowed, turning to continue their aimless wander with her arm tucked cosily into his. “And thank you! Command must be making me sombre for this nonsense from Narnia to trouble me so.”

“You’re loyal to your friend, and we should have you no other way.” Idly she swiped the head from a wilted poppy, scattering them both with its dark seeds. “Tell me about your _Lady Carolina_ , as you won’t take me aboard her disguised! You think her a beauty, no doubt?”

She strove to divert his grim thoughts and it was only gallant, Drinian decided, to allow her. “The captain that doesn’t think his lady the loveliest afloat should be tossed ashore in disgrace!” he exclaimed. “She may be creaking with age, but I shouldn’t change my _Lady Carolina_ for all the jewels in Tashbaan.”

“The old dame’s to be envied, having so handsome a young swain in her thrall! Who was the _real_ Lady Carolina by the bye? Did you ever hear?”

Drinian tilted his head, eyes half-closed as he savoured a cool early evening breeze. “The company’s divided between her being a distant connection of His Majesty, or an admiral’s strumpet,” he said slyly, his arm already tensed in readiness for the inevitable playful blow. “Though given the sour face on her prow, small pleasure he might have had from her!”

“Perhaps,” Anelia murmured, pushed onto tiptoe to coo the words as close as she could to his ear. “She might have been both?”

“A lady of the royal blood debasing herself with a common seaman, Your Highness?” The air in his lungs warmed; thickened. Her mouth hovered a whisper away from his cheek, the delicate sweetness of rosewater that always hung around her mingling with the deeper, earthier scents of damp grass and cool moss. Anelia chuckled.

Drinian was strong. Her glossy head barely came to his shoulder, and the swaying shards of feathery grass waving at his waist bore more weight. And yet as he took his next step, the pull of her sagging onto his arm was enough, unbalanced, to drag him with a thud and a quickly muffled yell to the ground.

“Anelia!” he grunted as she rolled them, the wildness of the meadow a perfect nest around their entangled limbs. The great cascade of her hair sweeping over his face, the Princess lifted onto her elbow and grinned down at him with sparkling eyes. 

“Unheard of, my Lord,” she purred, pouncing like a cat on its pray. Her mouth closed over his, and all Drinian’s objections scattered with the pollen from the wildflowers sent dancing by their fall.

The sweet fragrance of her filled his nostrils, her hands already active, dispatching his belt and worming inside his jerkin to splay warm against the fine linen of his shirt; and she kissed like a tavern wench, unrestrained and ardent, calling darkly to the rash adventurer held in check behind his courtly façade. Drinian returned her passion with interest, aware of nothing but the yielding softness of her beneath him and the slow, sensual uncoiling of pleasure through his blood. 

Anvard and all it contained melted clean out of his mind.

*

“Highness! Princess Anelia! Royal Highness!”

The piercing cry was almost directly above him before it penetrated his clouded mind. Stifling a curse, Drinian hurled himself sideways from her cloying embrace and biting down into the mossy ground that cushioned his fall. 

He caught a faint rustling: his companion, he gathered, scrambling to her knees and already struggling to rearrange disordered clothing. Though his fingers were clumsy he followed suit, keeping his loftier head ducked while battling with lacings, buttons and belt. “The dinner bell’s rung, Highness!” Anelia’s maid trilled again, ever closer. Something soft and damp struck the side of his head.

Flowers, he discovered, their stems split open and leeching sap. “Dinner already, how the afternoon has flown!” Anelia exclaimed, shaking the satin shield of hair that fell into the small of her back. “My Lord Drinian, see how you’ve distracted me!”

There were more flowers dripping from her crown, he discovered when he twisted, moderately certain of respectability, to face an intruder fairly hopping with alarm a few yards away. Still more drooped from her fingers: a tiny pink daisy linked through the stem to a blue cornflower; and a dainty whitebell. “Your pardon, Ma’am,” he answered formally, snatching at the shredded blooms around his knees before standing with a smile firmly pinned onto his bruised mouth. Anelia wagged an almost-steady finger.

“You did give me fair warning that those _rough mariner’s hands_ were unsuited for the delicate business of flower crowns,” she declared, snatching back the tattered remnants still bleeding over him. “But I’m determined, you _shall_ master the art before you return to the sea! Run ahead, Linara. Assure my father we shall hurry to the table, but we really _must_ wash our hands first!”

Not until her maid turned to obey did her composure falter, both hands flying to her face to imprison her manic giggles. Drinian took a step back and folded his arms, admiration for her quick-wittedness vying with weary exasperation and emerging triumphant when she offered him a dimpling, happy grin. “Not the first time Your Royal Highness has been so _surprised_ , I'll wager?” he murmured, stooping to dash the crooked floral circlet that hung over her ear to the ground. Quivering all over with repressed mirth, she bent to retrieve it.

“Papa likes to see my handiwork, my dear Captain,” she reprimanded, quite ignoring the question. “And he’ll laugh to know I plan to make a crown jeweller of you yet! We can wash in the scullery, but hurry! Lord Barsin becomes _quite_ upset when we’re not punctual to our meals!”


	61. Sixty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's at the centre of a court scandal. Or is he?

His Majesty might roll his eyes and stop mere inches short of patting their heads but not everyone, Drinian suspected, was persuaded by the seeming innocence of their loudly-proclaimed childish pursuits. The Deputy Chamberlain _tsked_ very audibly on passing him in the Gallery before breakfast next morning, and even Prince Corin looked up from the charter he was required to read aloud in the Council Chamber later to give his Narnian friend a very hard stare.

He made a special point of avoiding Aunt Katharina, conscious of the chill waves of displeasure rolling in his direction; and made himself scarce from the Great Hall on the excuse of a report unwritten for the Lord Admiral’s attention until the summons came for the afternoon’s planned ride. Usually his favourite hour of the Anvard day, he had a momentary panicked thought of absenting himself from that too, before good sense asserted itself.

“Hide away and half the court will whisper,” he told his reflection sternly, deliberately exchanging a jerkin of rich blue quilted satin for the informality of tan leather. “Best to be seen, if you’d have them look for a better scandal!”

Striding toward the stables with a bellyful of butterflies at play, he cast her a friendly wave without colouring and hurried across to the stall where his favoured mount stamped, saddled and impatient for the off. “Well, Tempest,” he said fondly. “Out-gallop them all this afternoon, shall we?”

“I don’t know how you can manage that crack-brained giant,” Prince Corin announced from the neighbouring stall where a sturdy chestnut bore stoically with his rider’s awkward heave aboard. “Even if you _are_ so much bigger about the shoulder than me!”

Drinian laughed. “He has a temper about him, and doubtless recognises the same in me,” he said cheerfully, swinging into the saddle unaided. Corin’s cackle preceded them both into the yard.

“Fearless, that’s what you are!” he yelped reining in alongside the taller horseman. “Father! You’ll allow us a good gallop once we’re clear of the valley?”

“Any madcap that wishes to risk his head in a ditch may do so, as long as he’s sure of his seat.” With a roll of the eyes King Nain ambled to join them, a hole in his tunic and a smear of grease on the peak of a strong cheekbone where his spectacles usually sat. “So, I have no concern for _your_ safety, Captain Drinian! You’ll stand watch on my son?”

“Little though he may need it, Sire.” He caught the barest glimmer of a look exchanged between monarch and heir, pursing his lips as the elder wheeled away. “Am I to assume…”

“Father’s not deaf to the whispers, whether he believes a word of them or no.” Unremittingly honest, it never occurred to Corin he might be indiscreet. “Anelia! Ride with us!”

Her instinct, he gathered, matched his: avoidance. Faced with her brother’s rowdy summons (turning more heads than usual, which Drinian had hardly thought possible) she had no choice but to steer her pretty palomino to their side, allowing the older, more sedate riders to trot through the archway and out into the main courtyard before them.

“We’ll give them a start and still be over the stream first!” Corin squawked: and the Prince was, Drinian realised with a shock, by a distance the most uncomfortable of the three. Anelia gazed beyond her brother toward him, the faintest smear of a smile on one corner of her rosebud mouth. 

“ _Don’t_ fall into the stream today Corin, even if we _are_ a smaller party than last time,” she sighed, the grin breaking out full-blooded when he yelped the inevitable complaint. “You were fortunate to be at sea, Drinian! Given your namesake’s rescue of a Narnian heir, it might have fallen to _you_ to drag this lumbering addle-pate of Archenland back to solid ground.”

“I should manage his great bulk more easily than you, I daresay.” The riposte came as naturally as their laughter, and some of the tingling tension around him dissolved. The grooms were turning their attention back to their business. The older generation, led by the King, had spurred their mounts into action without a glance behind. “And thank you, Corin,” he added more quietly, restraining Tempest’s impatience long enough for the clop of hooves echoing under the archway to muffle the words. The Prince flashed a lopsided grin.

“Anelia’s reputation stands beyond salvage, but we’d sooner not see the gallant Captain’s impugned on our territory,” he cackled, starting forward to escape the irate flick of his sister’s whip. “We’re to ride beyond the Crooked Woods today. Father tires of the castle, and with so many guests the last few weeks…”

Tempest’s ears pricked. “There are times I believe that brute understands every word,” Corin grumbled, eyeing the ebony stallion with alarm. Drinian gave the glossy neck a fond pat. 

“You should appoint him to your council when the time comes, for there's many a king had duller-witted advisers,” he said, brow darkening at the unwelcome recollection of at least one such. “If Sopespian and Solivar can sit at Narnia’s high table…”

“And Barsin and Hastin at Archenland’s,” Anelia added quickly, daring her brother to dispute. Corin groaned.

“By the Lion, now I’m in as bad a temper as Drinian!” he wailed. “We’ve given a good start – who’s for a gallop? Hi! Wait for me!”

They were down the path and beyond the boundary wall before he could even finish his indignant complaint.

*

All three negotiated the stream on the way to the Crooked Woods in safety, haring past the sedate main group to take the narrow obstacle at full speed. Flushed and windblown they only slowed as they entered the trees, their laughter ringing breathlessly back from ancient oak and twisted birch. “Best let the old folk catch us now,” Corin sputtered, vaulting down much more gracefully than he had mounted. “Ha! Anelia, your hair’s as much a tangle as Drinian’s!”

“And yours is not?” Careless, he combed his fingers through the wayward onyx mass, slumping back against a broad trunk with Tempest’s rein dandled between slack fingers. Corin harrumphed. 

“I’ve not so much to be _blown about_ as you,” he bragged, patting down the bright halo while his sister efficiently re-pinned her wind-shredded pleat. “Look! There’s a whole patch of blue and white-bells down by the pond and – ow!”

Two pairs of dark eyes met in a moment’s glittering sympathy. “At least he’ll stay dry this time,” Drinian muttered, stretching a long arm to assist the prone Prince upright. Glowering at the twisted spine of tree root that had caught his foot, Corin managed a reluctant snigger.

“ _And_ Father’s not here to see it,” he added devoutly, standing still for his sister to dust the soil and moss from his pale gold tunic. “Bother! I was going to suggest we sit innocently studying to make those confounded flower crowns you’re so fond of, sister, and look! I’ve half-flattened the whole patch of them!”

“They still look fresher than those our friend shredded, Your Highness.” Mockery turned to comprehension, and Anelia dropped with an ungainly thump into the middle of the squashed flower patch, rendered speechless by the cunning displayed by her usually wide-open twin. By the time King Nain’s small party, with Admiral Dar hallooing exuberantly at its head, could reach the woodland both young men had respectable lengths of dainty floral chain spread across their laps, every new link being watched and criticised by the lady. 

“Well, well.” Nain polished his spectacles lightly on his tunic, leaning down to better examine the quality of their work. “You’ve a more delicate touch than I should have expected Corin but _you_ , my Lord…”

“The ratlines aboard my _Lady Carolina_ are knotted from a stronger twine than these, Your Majesty,” Drinian admitted wryly, lifting his ragged chain for closer inspection. Anelia gave vent to a melodramatic sigh.

“There’s no help for it, Papa,” she conceded, twirling her own neat chain around her waist as a pretty girdle. “My Lord Drinian will never make a jeweller. You might very well send him back to the sea!”

“I doubt we could keep him from it, my dear.” The King cast a triumphant glance back to his loitering huddle of courtiers. “Now, shall we turn back? Whilst you children have been _playing_ , the clouds have begun to gather. We should ride hard for the castle, lest we all half-drown!”

*

Not even Tempest’s mighty stride could spare Drinian the soundest dousing he had ever suffered on land, and by the time they were huddled under the shelter of Anvard’s arched gateway every member of the intimate party drooped and dripped worse than the bedraggled flowers clinging to the Princess’s russet skirts. “Perhaps it would have been wiser to remain in the valley,” Corin spluttered, shaking himself like a large ginger puppy and spraying everyone in a ten-yard radius in the process. Wringing out his sodden cloak, King Nain allowed a reluctant chuckle.

“Better half-drenched than held another hour inside the house!” he exclaimed, a frown beginning at the sight of his elderly household officers risking the downpour to totter together from the castle’s porch. “Hastin! Barsin! What have We _said_ about protecting your old bones from the damp?”

“Your Majesty, we have a messenger come in haste from the court at Redhaven.” The risk to Barsin’s exposed throat appeared greater than that to his swaddled limbs, given the tremendous waxed cloak that engulfed him. “He bears a letter from Count Massarin that he’ll surrender to no other hand…”

“Corin, come with me to greet our guest. Anelia, see our company supplied with towels and hot water. Come along, my Lord Chamberlain, give me your arm. Let us see what my lord the Count of Brenn wishes to have of us _this_ year!”

*

In the seclusion of his tower room Drinian stripped his soaked clothes and towelled away the downpour’s worst effects, whistling softly to himself. Corin, the most tactless of sympathetic friends, had a diplomat’s craft after all. “Bodes well for his reign, if not his sister’s tranquillity,” he mused, dragging on fresh hose and a dry shirt before grimacing at his tousled reflection in the glass. “Hang it! Yes, come in!”

“His Majesty’s compliments, my Lord.” The usher standing with a hand still raised to knock again curled a lip as he dragged the door open, evidently displeased by Drinian’s semi-clothed state. “If you might be so kind as to accompany me to his Private Parlour directly.”

Drinian cocked his head. “His Majesty _did_ stress the urgency of his request, my Lord,” the impeccably-attired servant admitted wearily. With a last hopeless finger-comb for his damp hair, Drinian stepped into the hall. 

“In that case, if you might be so kind…” 

Had he crossed the castle stark naked the looks he attracted could barely have been more scandalised, but King Nain waved away his attempted apology with a preoccupied smile, pushing the reading glasses back over the prominent bridge of his nose. “Forgive that you’re called in such unseemly haste my Lord, but I have need of your good service,” he explained, directing his guest to a chair with a glance. Drinian subsided into it, narrow-eyed.

“Count Massarin writes to inform Us of the grievous loss of his Countess: a sudden illness, and a dreadful blow to him and his Confederacy,” the King explained, flicking the parchment on his seat’s arm. “Please, read for yourself! Too late to be represented at her burial of course, but Archenland must send its proper condolences with all speed. Your _Lady Carolina_ is as swift a vessel as the fleet can boast, I hear?”

“And can be readied within an afternoon, if it be Your Majesty’s pleasure that she carry your embassy to the Count,” Drinian replied promptly, entirely failing to keep the eagerness from his voice. The King chuckled softly.

“Captain the Lord Drinian, Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Lily, is as impressive an ambassador as ever a sovereign could send, I think,” he said kindly, stooping to sweep up the page that slipped between shock-slack fingers. “And spares a ship’s company the presence of a _blethering lubber_ under their feet for the better part of two months! Come, my Lord! You’ve as fine a courtly presence as any these Northern realms may boast, and in sending you to your own element I spare my landlocked emissaries that terror and discomfort you’ll find a pleasure. What say you? Will you bear my goodwill to my comital cousin of Brenn?”

“I and my ship are at Your Majesty’s service.” A Narnian exile as Archenland’s ambassador. _If only Miraz could see!_

The King beamed as benevolently as if he could read his envoy’s bitter thought (and Drinian would not have been surprised if he had). “Your adopted kingdom could have no finer representative, Drinian,” he said, almost paternal as he laid a plump hand on the younger man’s tense arm. “And you’ll do your own greater credit than it’s earned these last ten years in so doing! Besides, this is the sixth time my emissaries have carried solemn sympathies to Massarin. There’s barely a Lord of Archenland not had the honour of his acquaintance already.”

Startled into a laugh, Drinian rose with his host. “I _was_ trying to remember how many wives the Count’s outlived, Sire,” he admitted apologetically. “My aunt would have my hide, but I couldn’t for the life of me work out whether it was five or six.”

“One from each of the other isles in his confederation,” Nain confided, his open features reflecting the younger man’s bemusement. “And never buried one without being sure of the next bride’s name that I can tell.”

“Regretting now they’re not the Eight Isles?” They passed from the King’s private apartments into more public space side by side, Nain’s cordial hoot diverting attention from his companion’s shockingly improper state of undress. “With your permission I’ll ride for Barwell at first light. The last of the crew are due aboard before noon, so we could easily sail on the evening tide.”

“Eager to be away, Captain?” Nain smiled sadly. “Very well! Makes your farewells to your relations and mine. You’ll have my letters for the Count and his son – we are told my Lord Vissarin is greatly distressed by the loss of _this_ stepmother – before supper.”


	62. Sixty-One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’s never felt more at peace with his exiled condition. The Fates (or something) seem determined to change all that…

“Never seen weather like it this time o’ year, Cap’n! Fair beats me where these damn winds’ve sprung from!”

Swinging from the wheel with his waxed cloak billowing, Tarin had to bellow his grievance to the man alongside. Her sail tightly furled against the yardarm the _Lady Carolina_ surged north ahead of a howling gale, with Captain and Boson together fighting manfully to retain any manner of course. The one they had aimed for, Drinian reflected grimly, had been abandoned on the second day out, thanks to the about-turn of the prevailing winds expected in these early summer months.

“’Tis where they’re taking us troubles me, Boson!” Jorix staggered along the listing deck toward them, all but throwing his slight frame against the wheel with theirs. “North, north, nor’west… these are unfamiliar waters to me!”

“If not to me,” Drinian pointed out, milder than he felt. Astern and disappearing into lowering banks of thick grey cloud, the mountains marking Archenland’s northern border could just be seen from the fighting top. Athwart and afore…

“ _Narnia_.” 

Even saying her name twisted a serrated blade in his gut. Beyond the spray and the damp sea mist, her rolling southern hills and copses rose into wilder, more wooded terrain the farther north they ran. Greenglade and Glasswater would give way to Beruna; Beaversdam; onward, past the ruins on the island…

Toward Etinsmere. His own lands, at last!

Releasing his grip on the tiller he let himself slide the length of the poop, half-falling off the ladder to the maindeck below. “Lookout!” he bawled, briefly amused by the image of Aunt Katharina wincing from proof of his iron-cast lungs when an arm waved aloft. Launching himself at the rigging, Drinian let himself be buffeted by the storm, climbing just high enough to be sure he was understood. 

“Watch for an island offshore, topped with a ruin!” he hollered heedless of the curious glances the order attracted. “When you see it, hail as if the Imperial Fleet o’ Calormen stood astern!”

Over the whistle and whirl of the elements, it came as a whisper. “Aye, Cap’n!” 

Suddenly exhausted he let himself slither down the wet ropes, barely feeling his knees buckle at the shuddering connection between soles and deck. With a nod to nobody in particular he hunched his shoulders, shoved the plastered hair straight up from his brow and trudged up the sheer list of the ship toward his officers.

“Let her run north as she pleases, Jorix,” he instructed, barely recognising the gravelled command for his own. “There’s a strong band o’ southerly current runs off the north Narnian shore, all the way down to Galma and beyond. We’ll make up for this lost time once we strike it, I daresay.”

He spied the worried glance exchanged across the wheel. Recognised its meaning; and found he no longer cared. 

Ninian at Greenglade. Caspian, somewhere well inland at the old fortress. The Glasswater sisters and Lund, Beaversdam’s slow-moving, slow-witted heir. As if proximity was restoring memory he saw all their faces clearly for the first time in a decade, and more than anything he longed to blot them out again.

From deck it was impossible to make out more than a dirty smear, but he knew these coasts: had studied them on his father’s charts, fascinated by their flowing lines, long before he could read the names attached. Barely half a league seaward, he knew that current would be flowing already. An order from him could send men to the oars, ready to crab the _Lady Carolina_ across until she could be caught in its grip. A few crisp words and Narnia could be set behind him, where she belonged, once more.

Yet each time he tried to speak them, his throat closed up. And his fond _Lady Carolina_ rushed farther, faster, as if she knew his dreams and followed them.

He moved about his duties in a daze, doing what was needful with one ear cocked, ever ready for the hail. When it came he had the telescope tucked beneath his arm, one hand already on the ratlines. “Hold her steady as you can, Jorix!” he yelled over his shoulder, racing to the slippery beam of the yardarm and winding himself serpent-like around it.

Its tumbledown turrets piercing the clouds, the ruined castle crowned a rocky outcrop level with the schooner’s bow, and for a long moment he trained his glass upon it, imagining the grandeur it must once have seen. Then slowly, almost reluctantly, he swung his attention beyond the bowsprit, ever further to the north.

The curve of the shoreline; the steady rise of the land beyond; the steep, wooded hills plunging into valleys where the multiple tributaries of the River Etin trickled serenely toward the sea. As if they meant to torment him the clouds lifted, shafts of sunlight glinting off the verdant canopy and, biting hard enough to taste blood on his lower lip, Drinian raised his glass from the coastline, the image already formed inside his head.

Too far away to be visible, lost somewhere in the mist swirling over the hills, and yet he still saw it plainly under an azure sky. Proud among the trees that parted around it, high on the hilltop with its mullioned windows standing open to catch the faintest tang of brine from the waves, Etinsmere House in all its rose-coloured glory appeared before him. Close enough to touch, yet never farther from his reach.

Something wrenched inside. Drinian curled himself tightly around the yardarm in acute pain as something scraped down hard behind his ribs, hollowing his innards. Leaving him a shrivelled shell. 

Unnoticeable in the swirling spray, tears spiked his downcast lashes, all the loneliness of the past ten years rising to fill the empty space in his chest and pressing hard around his heart. _Oh, Etinsmere! Will I ever cease to pine for you?_

He clambered down to the maindeck in a miserable trance, swallowed up by the wary silence of his crew. “Boson, let’s have the men to the oars!” he shouted, dragging chin from chest by a mammoth exertion of will. “Haul her eastward ‘til she strikes the current, and hold her steady! It runs hard no more than half a league across, but hereabout it should be strong enough to counter this damned infernal gale!”

“Aye, Cap’n!” Dragging his sou-wester down over his eyes Tarin stumbled for the hatch, the frantic windmilling of his arms comical enough to rouse a strained smile in place of the laughter it better deserved. Decisively turning his back on the land, Drinian squared his shoulders and grabbed the abandoned helm, setting his sights of Galma and the islands beyond. 

The whole world stood open to him, bar the place he yearned to go. Freedom beyond that his old friends ashore most likely enjoyed: but in that instant, not a freedom the Master of Etinsmere could feel worth owning.

*

Any hope he might have had of being left to wallow in despair was dashed when Zarn shuffled toward him with shaggy head bowed, barely whispering a request to relieve his commander on watch. For the first time Drinian saw a man unnerved in his presence, and it was more than he could bear.

As the wind died down, shifting to its more familiar late spring south-easterly, he sauntered for’ard, taking care to acknowledge every man by name until he reached the lookout at the prow. “You brought your fiddle aboard Delmar, I presume?” he asked, lounging comfortably against the high bulwark. Mouth pursed, the sailor nodded.

“Never without it, Cap’n – ‘cept when Boson tries to ‘ide it from me! You’ll be wantin’ some o’ the jigs, not them dirges the fellows makes me play this evenin’ Sir?”

“The first man that calls for a dirge gets a dozen o’ the best after breakfast.” The threat made men cackle; and their laughter in turn dissipated the worst of the black clouds around his head. “The weather’s set fair now, I daresay. Let the company take some leisure before we strike Galma and the Thirty League Rocks.”

“Thank ‘ee, Cap’n!”

“Right kind of y’, Sir!”

“Be proper glad t’ see you on deck with us, Cap’n.”

The chorus of voices came low and respectful, without a shred of pity behind the friendly words. Drinian dipped his head, a genuine smile ghosting across his face. 

“If you’ll stand my surety should Boson object to the bawdy impropriety of it all…” he drawled. 

Only Tarin, he noticed, laughed more heartily than he.


	63. Sixty-Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> King Nain’s ambassador makes his bow, and gets more than he bargained for from a surprisingly merry widower…

They made landfall before dawn a day later than expected after their Narnian detour. His spirits bolstered by an easy crossing, Drinian retrieved his best tunic from the bottom of a trunk and shook out its creases; smoothed down his unruly mane; and, tucking King Nain’s elaborately sealed letters into his belt, strode to the entryport where Jorix stood holding the rope ladder in readiness. “Grant the men a night’s leave apiece while we re-provision,” he said, allowing his crisp accents to carry the welcome words the schooner’s length and pretending not to see how men nudged their neighbours and grinned. “Two rotations: and take a night on land yourself! I’ll do battle with the butchers and bakers in your stead.”

“Aye, Captain.” For the first time he saw Jorix discomfited, his perpetually attentive expression dimmed. “You’ll take a day yourself, Sir?”

“Should time allow,” Drinian assured him, scrambling down to the gig. “All right, your rabble o’ reprobates, shove off! Bar and Barin, you’ll come up to the residence with me. Hanlin if you’d be so good as to stay on the harbour wall.”

“Plannin’ t’ confuzzle Count’s officers, Cap’n?” the blond sailor asked with a grin to the twins. Drinian winked.

“I have a solemn mission to undertake,” he intoned, lazing back at the bow. “And then a quarrel to have with the providers of your salt beef and biscuit! You’ll allow me a moment or two’s amusement, surely?”

“’Ear Muil’s the place for that, Sir – for a man o’ your rank anyrate.”

“So I was told by one who knew.” Captain Ram’s kindly face flashed across his vision, and briefly, Drinian’s merriment faded. “However, my leisure’s dependent on the Count’s whims. I may spend a week on a stool in his antechamber yet!”

“We’ll bring y’ a flagon from the Fisherman’s Wharf, Cap’n,” Bar volunteered. Drinian dipped his head. 

“And disrupt your own wenching time?” he asked, delighting in their mixed response of embarrassment and mirth. “A sacrifice I’d ask of no man!” 

“Mate’ll do the job then,” Hanlin muttered under his breath. Drinian pricked an ear, even as he feigned a very convenient deafness. “Moor up ‘ere, Cap’n?”

Leaving the boat under Hanlin’s care he marched his identical escort through the bustling narrow alleys of Redhaven and up to the iron gates of the Comital Palace on the town square, relieved to observe not a flicker between them when he declared his hereditary title in addition to the naval one. “You’ll find a corner for my crewmen?” he added, the slightest twist of tone turning an officer’s question into a lordly command. 

Barin, ever the bolder, definitely smirked. Watching Bar deliver a swift kick to his brother’s ankle, Drinian only wished he could do the same.

*

“Captain the Lord Drinian of His Archenlandish Majesty’s schooner _Lady Carolina_ , Your Grace!”

“My Lord.” Still garbed from head to toe in the violet-trimmed black of his mourning gown, Count Massarin eased his arthritic joints from a well-padded armchair set higher from the Great Hall’s floor than was King Nain’s monarchical throne. “The ambassador of my royal cousin is dearly welcomed! Please, come and sit with me.”

Drinian executed his deepest bow. “His Majesty offers his heartfelt condolences, Your Grace, on the most grievous loss of your noble Countess,” he announced, presenting the three embossed pages heavily inked around the edges in funereal black. The Count’s withered fingers crabbed awkwardly around them, and until he was certain of the old man’s grasp, Drinian kept an unobtrusive hold of one corner himself.

“His Majesty’s commiserations are gratefully received, my Lord: and you have made good speed to reach us! Our unhappy announcements can barely have reached your shores a month ago.”

“My ship stood ready for sea, Your Grace.” A stool was pushed to the dais steps, and at his host’s careful gesture Drinian subsided onto it, keeping his eyes down until a creak and a huff confirmed the old Count was safely ensconced amid his cushions. “And His Majesty was anxious that his expressions of solidarity with yourself – and with my Lord Vissarin, whom he understands to be particularly grieved by your shared loss – be made known with all haste.”

“The King is kind to consider my unhappy son.” Beetle-black eyes far younger than the heavily creased face that contained them danced over him, their affable scrutiny overt. “And to send so imposing a representative. Forgive an old man his curiosity! Your name is not Archenlandish, I think?”

“Narnian, Your Grace.” Much practised in the art of mourning wives, Count Massarin’s preferred strategy appeared to be avoidance of the subject. King Nain’s letters lay unopened on his lap, all the attention he might give them diverted to their courier. Massarin’s head twitched.

“Narnian, eh? A rare fish in these waters! Why, I’ve not heard of a _Narnian_ at Redhaven since those mad, rash fellows… oh, what _were_ their names?”

“The Lords Bern, Rhoop, Revelian, Octesian, Mavramorn, Argoz and Restimar,” Drinian supplied quietly. The dark grey head creaked back to its former position.

“Too old to be friends of yours, I think, but - nay, wait! Peers of your father, no doubt! That _lordship_ is a grand old Narnian title, I’d wager my leadership of these islands on it!”

“And remain secure at the Confederation’s head.” Having expected sombre murmurings, the Count’s peal of laughter made Drinian feel faintly giddy. “My lands lie in the north of Narnia – or would, were a usurper not established on the throne!”

“Etinsmere!” Massarin started upright, the violent motion arrested by a spasm of pain before he reached halfway. Before his ushers could bolt forward, Drinian bounded up to gently guide the old man back by stages to his cushions. “Thank you, my Lord. The mind’s younger than the crippled corpse these days, and ‘tis a painful predicament! I remember the big fellow with the odd, dainty voice – was it _Mavramorn_ or – or…”

“The Lord Restimar, if memory serves. I was a child when last I saw them,” Drinian corrected, concentration furrowing his forehead. Massarin’s head waggled.

“You’ve a sharper memory than I, and small wonder, given our differing years! _Restimar_ declared it would break his friend of Etinsmere’s heart to see Narnia embark on so magnificent a venture with a foreign ship! Hired her in Galma, I recall?”

“Aye, my Lord, and I felt the shame of it on my father’s behalf.” Declining the wine flask offered with a careful smile, Drinian found he could honestly appreciate the missing nobleman’s compliment to Papa’s extravagant maritime schemes. “Did you ever hear of them again?”

“They reached the Lone Islands, all seven.” Massarin stroked his stunted beard. “We did more trade there under the last governor than’s permitted by the old stoat in Narrowhaven now, y’ see - but beyond that….” 

Emaciated hands were raised in the universal gesture of defeat. “Brave men they were, to pledge such an undertaking!”

“Brave or afraid, given the fate of their friends ashore!”

One of the clawed hands came down, curling oddly around his wrist. “So long an exile, yet the bitterness remains,” Massarin sympathised. “Take the word of one who has ruled long over unwieldly territories, my Lord. Tyrannies will devour themselves at the end! Now, I should read the consoling words of my generous cousin. Tell me, is he in good health? The recent war must have been a great strain to him.”

“When I last saw him, excellent health.” Less cheered than he assumed he was meant to be, Drinian rose and made his bow. Allowing slightly younger and marginally straighter fingers to battle bulky wax seals, the Count dragged himself an inch from his chair in answer.

“You’ll remain at anchor a few days, I hope,” he said kindly. “And should you have any difficulty with our victuallers, be sure to mention my _particular_ goodwill! I’ll have my thanks to King Nain composed directly, but my clerk’s a nincompoop – have to check every document he transcribes, aye, and correct half of them in my own poor aching hand! If you were to call on my Chancellor three days from now, my Lord…”

“Very gladly." _Hang it!_

Schooling his features to display none of his impatience, Drinian angled himself toward a sour-faced official weighed down by a waist-length chain of office. The Chancellor bowed. 

Another test passed: the proper officer identified. Time, he decided, to flatter with a formal request. “And - with Your Grace’s permission - I’ll allow the scapegraces of my company some time to enrich the taverners of Redhaven before we sail?”

Massarin and his greybeards tittered appreciatively. “Our innkeepers _and_ their daughters will be honoured to serve them I’m sure, Captain,” the Count drawled, seeming barely older in mischief than Drinian himself. “But promise you’ll take some leisure yourself, before you leave our islands! Our neighbouring isle of Muil is renowned for its many beauties...”

“So I’ve heard, Your Grace.” Were the amenities of the island prostituted so flagrantly to every officer that passed Terebinthia, Drinian wondered idly. Small wonder Jorix blenched at the very mention of leave!

*

He returned to the barrack-like residence on the appointed morning to be greeted by the same gatekeeper, all fawning deference as he presented a large packet tied in black ribbon, its dedication to King Nain blotched and smeared like a schoolboy’s scrawlings. “And I’m commanded to offer these in the name of His Grace the Count, my Lord Drinian, for your personal pleasure, and with His Grace’s warmest compliments,” he declaimed, presenting two heavy glass bottles that clinked in a leather satchel embossed with the comital crest. “Produce of his own estates, and a very fine vintage, I’m told.”

“Be so kind as to convey my humble thanks to His Grace.” Uncle would enjoy it, Drinian considered ruefully. And Aunt, whether she appreciated the wine or no, would find pleasure in the compliment it carried. 

_And ensure the whole of Anvard hears of it within an hour!_

Still the gesture was generous, an accolade to be appreciated as he swung the bag over his shoulder and turned, whistling softly, toward his waiting ship. The last of the men should be clambering up the side, cursing throbbing heads and avaricious landlords; and a helpful current could see the _Lady Carolina_ out of harbour without waiting for the higher evening tide. _Give me only a pirate to take as a prize and I’ll be as happy a captain as ever breathed!_

Bar and Barin stood ready at the quay, springing from their slouch at the sight of him. “Every man’s back aboard, Cap’n,” the elder reported, unasked. “Carried the last o’ the provisions below an hour ago, and Mate told us t’ sit waitin’ for you, Sir. Keen to be off, ‘e is.”

“A sentiment I share,” Drinian agreed mildly, his pack clunking onto the bench as he laid a caressing hand on the tiller and pretended not to see their matching smirks, even as they stretched his nerves tighter than the strings of Delmar’s fiddle. 

Long familiarity with the sensation ought to have made him more observant of it in his deputy, though Jorix covered his unease with a façade of cheerful assurance few men could better. Like the Narnian exile at King Nain’s court, the little Mate knew himself different from his neighbours, and stood sensitive of their inquisitive incomprehension. 

Sympathy, Drinian knew by painful experience, was unbearable. Like the kinder of Anvard’s inhabitants, he felt it all the same.

*

Two hours later the two senior officers stood side by side amidships, their bare elbows resting on the larboard rail as the _Lady Carolina_ rolled placidly in pursuit of the noonday sun. “You found Muil to your liking I trust, Captain?” Jorix enquired innocently, slanting a half-smile the taller man’s way. Drinian arched a brow.

“I see why so many officers prefer it to Redhaven’s bustle,” he replied, impassive in the face of an open leer. “But I believe I should need a longer visit to better measure its charms.”

“Aye, a day’s small leisure to gauge a place’s greatest merit,” Jorix agreed, twisting to scrutinise his commander’s calm expression more closely. “How’s a man to judge which is finer – golden dawn, or the coming of night?”

Drinian’s gust of laughter rang the length and breadth of the ship. “In my little experience of Muil, I’d say the former,” he admitted, to the memory of swirling corn-gold hair and eyes the steady blue-green of the summer seas, all as far removed from the dangerous darkness of Anvard as a man could find. “A pity I had no time to investigate deeper than a glance!”

“A sad pity indeed, Sir.” Their eyes snagged and both men grinned hugely, the code between them clearly understood. “I’ll wager a few of the men were more fortunate in establishing Brenn’s finer moments, if you’ll pardon the bluntness,” Jorix continued drily. Drinian’s broad shoulders rolled.

“I’ll pass no judgement on a man of my company ashore, so long as he’s honest afloat,” he said, lifting his rich voice for half the crew to hear. “And think the poorer of any man that does. We’re sailors, not schoolmasters!”

“Aye, Captain.” Jorix would be a pauper in an evening at Anvard Drinian considered, watching the fine pixie features flood with grateful relief. Even Corin at his most inattentive would guess the cards in his hand! “There’s many a man might do well to remember that.”

“Any man that’s ever caroused on shore?” Drinian suggested humorously, sparing a friendly grin to Zarn on his bustle toward the lookout’s post. “Lion’s Mane! There’s a night or two in my own past I’d not care for the company to comment on!”

“Best not mentioned at Anvard?” 

“Or anywhere else.” Lightly Drinian clapped his friend on the shoulder, enjoying their shared laughter. “Now, Count Massarin was so kind as to send two bottles of his own vineyard’s finest to speed our journey, and you know I’m no trencherman. Why not leave the fellows to dine unguarded tonight, you, myself and Tarin? He’ll glug the better part of a bottle alone, and be none the worse in the morning!” 

“Aye, and you’d be wise to hide the second bottle if you’d see it presented to your uncle back at Barwell.” Warm brown eyes twinkled with mischief, the wariness Drinian had never noticed before dissolving. “And - thank you, Captain.”

“Never thank me unless I do something deserving of it, my friend,” he said simply, turning to sweep a thoughtful glance from stem to stern. “Advise the galley we’ll have dinner for the officers in the cabin, as soon as the company’s served. And _yes_ , Master Delmar—” wearily, to the hopping seaman at the poop ladder’s foot. “You may entertain the gulls with your scrapings, if your fellows don’t tire of them too completely! I’ll take the tiller a while now, I think.”


	64. Sixty-Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drinian has a report to make at Anvard, but a chance meeting with an old friend is about to change everything…

The _Lady Carolina’s_ wooden walkway struck Barwell Quay as the first spider-threads of silver dawn began to touch the sky. Setting his hefty pack more comfortably on his shoulders Drinian strode ashore, humming softly to himself as he turned in the direction of his uncle’s house. With luck he could be at Anvard by midday; deliver the Count’s letters and compliments to the King; and be back in Barwell for dinner.

The square was deserted, except for a small tortoiseshell cat that glanced up from the serious business of washing its paw as he offered a civil greeting her way. Somewhere down one of the side-streets a door banged, loud as a thunderclap through the sleeping town. With an indignant hiss, the beast darted away. 

He paid no heed to the unsteady footsteps echoing in his wake, unconcerned by the presence of a looming figure as he angled westward, across the centre of the cobbled court. When it emitted a sudden, raucous yelp of “ _Drin!_ ” he almost jumped out of his skin.

“Wha – _Wat!_ ” he gasped, bottle, telescope and sextant box clacking irritably together in his satchel while he twisted, peering at the burly, hook-nosed figure of his former shipmate as it wove a touch unsteadily in an attempt to catch Drinian’s longer, more fluid strides. “By the Lion’s Mane! Do you mean to frighten me to death, man!”

The wide, lopsided grin contained a tooth or two less than when he had seen it last, and the long dark hair showed the first faint sign of silvering about the temples, but the big man rolling across the square with arms raised (perhaps for balance as much as to offer the hug Drinian heartily returned) was unmistakable. “Aye, you’ve a lot t’ think about these days, Cap’n Drin,” Wat mumbled, still emitting the noxious fumes of his night’s excesses. Rum and stale sweat engulfed Drinian before he was shoved back to arms’ length and subjected to an inspection Captain Kolin could hardly have bettered. “What wi’ command, an’ now all this news from Narnia! Dun’t know if you’re on yer ‘ead or yer ‘eels, I’ll wager!”

Drinian’s head tipped. His eyes narrowed. Wat unleashed a bellow that might have woken the residents of distant Anvard.

“You don’t know!” he hollered. “You a Lord o’ wherever-it-is, and common old Wat the sailor knows afore y’!”

Oh, he ached to shake the drunkard’s waggling head off! Balling his hands behind his back, Drinian raised his chin and sucked a deep, calming breath. “ _What_ news?” he grated, forcing the words through the clawing grip of sudden, abject terror. Wat chortled, dragging him - rendered docile by too many potent emotions - to one of the low stone benches placed outside the largest wine merchant in town.

“Why, there’s been a great battle some place called Beruna, an’ the usurperer – usurp – that feller Miraz you ‘ated so - is dead!” he exclaimed clubbing his friend on the back with a meaty paw when Drinian began to splutter, every separate sense overwhelmed by the magnitude of the words. “Folks say the trees walked, and the animals found voices, an’ all. Right funny country, ain’t it?”

“The… the trees?” Drinian echoed faintly. _This is definitely seasickness_ , he mused, vaguely aware of a rolling in his belly and a strange woollen sensation filling his heavy head. His chin dropped into his chest. Wat’s gurgle seemed absurdly loud for something so very far away.

“And there was an army o’ dwarves, and men wi’ the legs of goats. They even says _Aslan_ lives, and come ‘isself t’ give blessing to the new King. Blimey! Never ‘eard the bloomin’ like, I ‘aven’t.”

“Caspian?” Sharp as a rapier’s blade, one thought cut through the confused melee crowding Drinian’s embattled brain. “Wat, the new King – is it _Caspian_ do you know? By the Lion, it _must_ be!”

“The usuperer – that feller Miraz’s nephew reigns now, and all them what wouldn’t bend the knee’s sent from the country by Aslan’s paw, so the rumour goes. Lad, you’re shakin’ like a wrong-furled sail in the middle of a gale, what’s wrong?”

Large hands, surprisingly tender, curled around his heaving shoulders. “He’s dead,” Drinian whispered, struggling to navigate the distance between his trembling hands and the bleary eyes he needed to cover. “M-Miraz is dead and – and _Caspian_ reigns? Wat, you’re certain?”

“Sure as I can be.” Pupping his lips, the big man leaned in to gather his stricken friend into the crook of his arm, holding him secure while Drinian fought for a semblance of control. “Caused a right ruckus it did, when the King’s proclamation were read! _Our Royal Nephew,_ ‘e said. Come into ‘is own by the grace o’ the Lion. Aye, you sob it out, lad! Been a long time waitin’ for that, ain’t y’?”

Was he crying? Burying his face against the solid wall of Wat’s chest, Drinian neither knew nor cared. The enormity of it terrified him, yet paradoxically he felt lighter than air. Narnia free. Caspian crowned. It was all too wonderful to be true and yet…

“What’ll you do, Drin?” Ever practical, Wat allowed him just long enough to straighten up and blink the wetness from his eyes before posing the question. Drinian laughed.

And laughed; and laughed, as he had not in ten years. “Why, go home of course!” he cried, so giddily exultant that the effort of heaving his friend’s muscular bulk off the bench passed unnoticed. The contents of his pack clanged noisily as he spun, and without looking he wrenched it open, dragging one precious item from its depths. “Here, Wat - with the compliments of His Grace the Count o’ Brenn! Drink to Narnia and King Caspian in my place.”

“Won’t mind if I do.” Deep creases formed at the corners of Wat’s mouth and eyes as he regarded his friend, aware of the change about him Drinian himself could not see. “And I’ll drink to _me Lord of Etinsmere_ while I’m about it. Aye, I remember the name; and lucky are your lands, to ‘ave such a master as you’ll be.”

“I’ll think myself lucky to have such lands, if the King grants me liberty to reclaim them.” The phrase was automatic, the confidence ringing through it complete. “And should you ever make landfall in those Northern parts, send word to me. There’ll always be a flask o’ good grog for you at Etinsmere.”

“Right kind of you, m’Lor…”

“No, Wat.” Slapping a palm over the open mouth, Drinian put effective stop to the unwanted word. “Never more or less than your shipmate Drin. I – _thank you!_ ”

“Glad t’ be of service, Drin.” Cradling the Redhaven bottle in the crook of his elbow, Wat executed a purposely unwieldy bow that Drinian returned with his courtliest effort, the laughter of both men resounding around the empty quadrangle. “Lion speed you to Anvard: and don’t fret for good King Nain! Let you go gladly for the sake of ‘is nephew, ‘e will! We’ll see you back as a Royal Counsellor o’ Narnia someday, I’d wager me last ‘alf-Coronet on it!”

“Given your miserable history of losing your wagers…” Suddenly solemn, Drinian stepped back for one last, fond look at the trustiest of all his Archenlandish friends. Wat smiled sadly.

“Aye, best keep the coin in me pocket, but I’d still bet on you bein’ a fine master for Etinsmere, and makin’ seamen o’ those timorous damn’ lubbers yet,” he murmured. “I’ll drink t’ you _and_ your King, Drin: and I’ll see you up there in Narnia someday! Now be off with you! King Nain’ll be waitin’.”

Like a schoolboy dismissed from his tutor’s presence, Drinian turned and sprinted for his uncle’s house and, more important, the stables beyond. When he glanced back Wat was still standing, one hand at his brow in salute, alone in the middle of the square.

And for the first time, he understood. Even amid the joy of going home, there must be sorrow in some needful goodbyes.

*

He pushed his long-suffering grey gelding all the way across the gentle hills to Anvard, reining back to a canter only when the castle came into sight nestled in the fold of its verdant valley. Bright pennants streaming from every turret, the Royal Banner flapping high above the gates, it had never been more familiar or charming, and as people streamed out toward him, headed by the small, spry figure of the King himself, Drinian admitted he had never felt fonder of it.

“My Lord of Etinsmere!” Nain snatched Scimitar’s bridle, his tired eyes sparkling behind their thick glasses. “We’ve had a watchman atop the turrets for the last week! Come, come within at once! You’ve heard the glorious news?”

“Then it _is_ as Wat said?” His reverence was truncated by impatience, but while the Lord Chamberlain tutted, His Archenlandish Majesty merely seized his hand and wrung it hard. “Caspian is King?”

“King of a Narnia very different from the one you knew.” People were staring with open respect, and his title, so long scorned, echoed in awestruck accents as he was hurried through the courtyard and up to sanctuary of Nain’s own parlour. “I’ve his letter – brief as it is - in readiness for you. Corin! Anelia! Come with us, and bring your missives for your royal cousin! You’ll be kind enough to carry our letters in your saddlebags, my Lord?”

“I – gladly, if Your Majesty will consent to release me.”

Archenland’s King – not his, Drinian reflected, not now and not ever, for all his munificence - patted his arm. “Loath as I am to lose your stalwart service Captain, I’ll never hold a man unwilling, and I know another holds higher claim on your obedience than I,” he said fondly, the twitch of a bushy brow diverting brother and sister to a low chaise pushed back against the wall. “Return to your own land with Our blessing! You’ll wish to write to your ship’s company I daresay?”

The curse that rose instinctively, Drinian turned into a prolonged hiss. “I heard the news inside five minutes ashore, Sire,” he said by way of apology. Nain stroked his pointed beard, struggling to keep the knowing smile from his face.

“Your men will, I doubt not, forgive your preoccupation, Captain,” he murmured, mouth compressed at the unmannerly snort which breached his heir’s puckered lips. “Your deputy, this _Jorix_ : a man fit to assume command, would you say?”

“None better.” The unstinting goodness of this genteel monarch had never been more deeply felt. Drinian slipped from the armchair facing Nain’s to his knees, gently grasping a beringed hand and carrying it reverently to his lips. “Your Majesty…”

“You will be as much missed at Anvard as aboard the _Lady Carolina_ , my Lord,” His other hand grazing the lowered raven crown, Nain gave a twitch of the head that sent his daughter scurrying in search of paper and pens. “But your heart remained at Etinsmere, and I will not keep you from it! Here – read your master Caspian’s letter whilst I dictate instructions to my Lord Admiral. Yours to Captain Jorix and his crew may travel with them: and you’ll take lunch with us before riding for Westerwood? You’ll find your possessions packed in readiness, although your aunt will be no less grieved by your going than I! Come along, Corin – Anelia. We must leave His Grace of Etinsmere to his business. Join us in my dining room at your convenience, Drinian.”


	65. Sixty-Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’s dreamed of making them for years, but goodbyes are never easy. Drinian has a lot to get through.

Luncheon was a merry meal, although he recognised a certain strain beneath the glittering surface of the royal family’s charm. “My nephew recognises his own inexperience, you see,” Nain remarked seriously, stretching to refill everyone’s water cups himself. “Gone from the nursery to the Throne with but a single battle to test his mettle, and with a force of strange allies at his back!”

“Better friends than his own kind have been, Sire.” Dwarves, Fauns and Talking Beasts; the Ancient Sovereigns of fairy-tale; even the mythic Lion himself, had risen to the banner of Telmarine Narnia’s true King where his own stood shackled by mute subservience. “But he has the acclamation of all Narnians now, and there’s time for the men o’ the realm to make amends.”

“The great Houses are all led by lords of around your own age,” Nain reminded him gently. “And for the better part, prisoners these past ten years like their King. Given time, I dare hope the might show themselves worthier of his trust than his uncle’s adherents proved.”

_The usurper met his end at the hand of his henchman Glozelle_. That phrase, carefully inscribed in a rounded, childish hand, had leapt from the page even before the diffident signature _Caspian, the King_ on first reading. The glow of malicious satisfaction it gave him, Drinian acknowledged, was wholly unbefitting a Lord of Etinsmere: but he would not be rid of it for all the treasure in Tashbaan.

“Your experience of the world will be invaluable to your master, Drinian,” Nain told him gravely, a finger already raised in admonishment when he would protest. “Nay, we’ll have no feigned modesty among friends! This tutor, this _Cornelius_ , whose loyalty ensured his escape from Miraz’s murderous grasp may have taught the rudiments of statesmanship but, as your uncle once cried of mathematical formulae, what is theory without practical application? Hurry home to this _Castle of Cair Paravel_ : place your many talents at your liege lord’s disposal; and if he’s even half the man his sire was, Caspian will quickly come to value the honest service of Etinsmere. As We have.”

“Your Majesty was always generous beyond my deserts.” Were Caspian half as fine a king as his genial, shabby little uncle, Narnia would have fortune far beyond hers, although Drinian’s throat was too tight for his tongue to express it. He gulped his water greedily, suddenly longing for the tart sting of raw grog. “And far beyond my ability to ever repay.”

“Well, well.” Off came the spectacles, to be rubbed vigorously against a soft satin sleeve; and from the corner of his eye, Drinian distinctly saw the heir to the throne scrubbing his face with the back of a freckled hand. “Your Lordship will find true friends at Anvard so long as we three draw breath. Is that no so, Corin? Anelia?”

“Of course, Father.” While her brother gulped and nodded, the Princess inclined her immaculately coiffured head. Half-rising, Drinian returned the gesture. 

“We shall miss you, Drinian,” Corin affirmed, lunging to grab his hand at considerable peril to the vase of freshly-cut flowers in the middle of the table. “But perhaps you’ll come back with Cousin Caspian some day?”

“Else Your Highness may visit Narnia?” Much touched by his artlessness, Drinian returned the handshake with conviction. “And Your Majesty – Your Highnesses – may rest assured: to the best of my little power, Archenland will always have a friend in Etinsmere.” 

“Should We be honoured with an invitation to Our nephew’s court, We should be delighted to visit your lands.”

“The honour will be mine, Sire.” Never had he felt so acutely what he owed these generous people. “Archenland gave me a home all the while my own was denied me. I shan’t forget that.”

“There is, perhaps, one more thing Archenland might give you,” said the King, stopping his instinctive protest with an imperious wave. “Your mount has galloped hard this morning. He deserves a comfortable repose. Take your choice of the Royal Stables, my Lord: a parting gift from us.”

Though his heart leapt, all the courtly composure instilled down years by the mistresses of Etinsmere and Westerwood alike kept the giddy glee he felt from Drinian’s face. “I’ll send to have Tempest saddled then, shall I?” said Corin, his feigned indifference breaking into a mammoth hoot at his friend’s instant, brilliant smile. “I _knew_ you’d choose him above any other, Drinian! Aye, take him and be welcome, you at least can control that half-wild devil!”

“I’ll see he has every comfort in Narnia, Sire. And again – thank you!”

Nain’s head wagged so hard he thought it might shake loose. “No more gratitude amongst friends, my Lord!” he cried, trying not to wince at the sight of his heir stumbling over his own feet at the doorway. “Perhaps… I wonder if in turn your uncle might allow Corin to become acquainted with the excellent Scimitar? He seems a resolute fellow, unlikely to hurl his Prince into too many ditches. Ah! But of course, you won’t have heard what happened the last time my son tried his luck with the redoubtable Tempest.”

“I imagine my Lord Drinian can guess, Father.” Nostrils flared and lips pupped, Anelia managed to daintily express utter disdain without a single cutting word. The King was not alone in frowning.

“The brute has a temper about him, Sire,” Drinian said steadily, addressing himself solely to the disapproving parent. “Probably enables him to see the same in me! It may be greatly to His Highness’s credit that Tempest identifies him as a milder spirit.”

“Aye, _mild_ is not a term any man would apply to either of you.” Pushing back his scraped plate the King of Archenland rose, offering his arm to the Lord of Etinsmere. “For which Narnia may one day be the more grateful! Ah, Corin! Our friend’s steed stands ready?”

Either Their Archenlandish Highnesses had the most efficient grooms that ever lived, or he had been comprehensively outwitted this time. Given the matching grins worn by father and son alike, Drinian supposed the latter.

His suspicion was confirmed by the presence of every resident of Anvard gathered at the gates to see him away. Dorix, pushed forward by his master and blushing furiously under the assembly’s gaze, stretched for a last fierce hug, then reddened further to see the bearer of Narnia’s grandest aristocratic title bend his knee to an usher’s bride. “I’ll send an ell or two of our best Etinsmere velvet as a wedding gift,” he promised, waving away their gratified burbles with a merry smile. “Always assuming the usurper didn’t ruin a fine old industry! Your Highness…”

“I’ll see it delivered with my own hands,” Corin pledged gruffly, wiping his eyes again.

Barsin and Hastin; Lords Aran and Arn, and the simpering Lady Sorina; sullen Horstin; Aneta and Beatriza. All of them and more pressed forward, eager that their goodwill be known to the great Narnian lord. And all of them, Drinian reminded himself grimly, reasons why this pleasant castle in so hospitable a kingdom had never quite become home.

It took royal authority to disperse the throng, with King Nain cupping his own hand to boost him into the saddle while Tempest stamped and brayed, catching his rider’s eagerness to be gone. “Your aunt prefers to make her farewells in private,” he murmured, grabbing the stallion’s bridle from Corin’s unsteady hand. “Never doubt that you’ll be missed more dearly at Westerwood than anywhere else in the kingdom.”

More loudly (and with more command in his tone than Drinian had ever heard before) he added, “Aslan speed your journey, my Lord Drinian! We wish success and prosperity to you and all Narnia!”

People cheered. Tempest whinnied impatiently. With a final smile and a bow, the Master of Etinsmere trotted through Anvard’s ever-open gates and turned northward, bound for his own estates at last.

*

With his new companion’s enormous stride to support him he reached Westerwood well before sunset, pausing at the treeline to gaze down on his childhood refuge for several moments. So flat against the ruggedness of Etinsmere, its endless meadows bland against the memory of boundless forest and rushing stream. When had he begun to love it?

Perhaps, Drinian admitted, not until this moment, knowing he must take his leave! 

Another assembly awaited, with every servant and all their relations clustered at Lord Dar’s back. “Grand news at last, my Lord Drinian!” he bellowed, startling Tempest into a violent buck that scattered the jostling crowd more effectively than a hailstorm. “Now, hurry within, your aunt has supper waiting in the parlour. Your possessions here are all packed, and aught that’s left at Barwell we’ll send on at your instruction. Warin! Ostin! See to my Lord of Etinsmere’s mount, he’ll be needed before daylight I’ll wager!”

“Thank you.” Drinian vaulted down straight into the old sailor’s engulfing arms, his satchel removed by who-knew which helping hands. “All that matters I’ve with me, but there are clothes aboard the _Lady Carolina_ ; and a book or two I’d be loath to leave at Barwell…”

“Taking your sextant box and glass for a proper wax and polish when you heard the news, eh?” Greenish lights a-twinkle in his eyes, Dar patted his arm. “Good man! You’ll make mariners o’ those wretches yet, just as your father always dreamed. Katharina! The head o’ your great House is here m’dear, come and pay your homage at once!”

“ _That_ , I believe, is owed the opposite way.” Her worn features brighter, younger than he remembered, the proud Lady Westerwood would have curtsied had her nephew’s hand not struck out to arrest the motion. “Come now, I’m no more Lord of Etinsmere than I was for the last ten years: may even be less, should King Caspian choose to withhold my honours! What news from the border, have you heard?”

“Beyond that it stands open, and trade resumes as if Miraz never lived, there’s little enough.” Supper – usually a modest meal served formally at the dining table – had been transformed for his coming into a luscious spread set out on every available surface in the larger parlour. Bread, fresh from the oven; meats hot and cold; cheeses; bowls of wild berries; sweetmeats, cakes and biscuits all proudly decorated with the ship of Etinsmere; and the finest vintage Westerwood had ever produced, held in readiness, so said the master, for precisely this occasion. 

“And never forget: there’ll always be a welcome for you in this house, should your duties in Narnia grant liberty to use it,” he added, very serious. No less so, the younger man raised his glass.

“And the warmest of welcomes at Etinsmere for my aunt and yourself,” he pledged, no longer surprised by an unaccustomed hoarseness in the words. “I’ve been a turbulent house guest I know…”

“What son of Etinsmere was ever different?” Rising from her fireside chair, the sole surviving daughter of that great lordship swept across to embrace him, her sharp chin digging into his shoulder. “But this new Narnia is no place for an old woman! The speaking beasts of legend raised as high as men; walking trees; a King counselled by dwarves and giants… the magical stories of your youth were the nightmares of mine, and now they live and hold sway!”

“What treachery might Beasts be guilty of, that Man does not practise better?” Drinian wondered, dragged back to the last night in her secure, _human_ old Narnia: to all the blood and the agony inflicted over years by his own kind. “Better for Caspian he’s counselled by them that fought for him than those who hid their heads in his time of need!”

“For a venturesome young man there’s always hope in a new world, my boy.” Uneasy in the role of peacemaker, Dar lad a restraining hand on the arm of each, watching nervously as they challenged each other at a range of inches. “We old folk are more fearful of change. ‘Tis our burden, no doubt, but for you… your Narnia will be what you make of it, and I can imagine no man better fitted to make a fine place of it.”

Her pinched features softened. “Sometimes, Drinian, your uncle astounds me,” she murmured, lifting her nephew’s clenched hands to her lips. Dar chortled.

“After eight years at sea m’dear, there’s naught Caspian’s Narnia can send to disconcert the boy,” he declared, and when she rolled her eyes Drinian laughed, pulling her into a vehement hug. “The man that can flourish below decks is one that can prosper anywhere! You’ll do well in Narnia, Drinian: and I’ll wager Westerwood itself that she will do well of you.”

“Aye.” Stepping back, Aunt Katharina gave a gentle tug to the stray lock of hair that fell across his forehead. “My brother was proud of his heritage, as I am. He would be prouder still to see the man he sired! You’ll want some time in the garden before you leave.”

His throat constricted beyond speech, Drinian answered with a curt nod. 

“I’ll bring you home one day, Mamma,” he whispered five minutes later, kneeling above her poor remains with the tumbling branches of the weeping cherry tree raking their spindly fingers through his hair. “Though how I’ll find Kathi after all these years, the Lion alone can tell! With Caspian king, I’ll make Etinsmere all Papa wanted her to be: aye, and turn the Narnians into mariners, too!”

How he would do a single one of those things Drinian barely knew, but in that moment, sharing the brilliance of the stars with the memory of her smile, it was possible to dream. After a decade of nightmares, no man could deny him that.


	66. Sixty-Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s a very different Narnia from the one he knew. Not for the first time, Drinian has a lot to learn in a short time…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, the exile returns home. I've got two more chapters to add after this one. I never thought it's happen, but I have finally finished the longest, most involved fic I've ever written!

The path from Westerwood’s valley to the towering height of Stormness Head he had steadfastly avoided since the first hours of his exile, finding the prospect of placing himself nearer Narnia too hideous to bear. Which meant, Drinian reflected, observing the passing countryside with curiosity from Tempest’s saddle, that even finding his way to the border presented a formidable challenge on barely two hours’ sleep.

His telescope and sextant nestled amongst clothes in his saddlebags, and a satchel bumped his hip with every stride. But for their weight, he might have passed for a native of Westerwood on a morning’s ride from the village, rather than the lord of a distant province making his way home from far too long an absence.

Material possessions had meant little when they were plentiful in boyhood, and in a decade’s dependence on kindly relations and the sponsorship of a foreign king, acquisition was a habit Drinian could hardly have allowed. A few books; his mother’s discreet jewellery; shells and strange stones found on distant shores; and the few copies of charts in his cabin. Between Westerwood, Barwell and the _Lady Carolina_ , he owned barely enough to distress a baggage mule’s foal.

He preferred it that way. Telescope; sextant; sword. Three items alone that had won him a place in a foreign land. “Why should I need more in my own?” he wondered, startled by the sound of the soft words in the pre-dawn air. “Hang it, the cloud’s too low! I can’t see the pass.”

What rumbled through his lower belly ought to be excitement, but he rather _knew_ himself thrilling with anticipation than actually _felt_ himself to be. Every fine hair on his body was prickling. The brush of air against his cheek held an unexpected sting, and every chirrup of birdsong from the trees sounded louder than King Nain’s court orchestra. Although he had never felt more alive, Drinian had the oddest sensation of being detached from himself. The man astride a magnificent black charger, whistling softly as he traversed the foothills of the border mountains, might have been a stranger.

By the time he reached the pass the sun was fully risen, dewdrops glistening on the fungi that clung at the track’s highest point. Shading his eyes, Drinian halted at the Archenlandish end of the crossing. _To savour the moment, or cling to the past?_ he wondered, giving his ring an absent-minded twist. The peak rose steeply above him, its height matched only by the dual heads of Mount Pire itself: the giant, so the stories said, held forever in stone. A myth, of course.

_Like the Talking Beasts, the Great Lion Aslan and the Ancient Sovereigns! Is anything beyond belief in this new Narnia?_

Suddenly the excitement was real, surging in his blood like the wildest ocean storm. Laughing aloud, Drinian spurred forward, the clang of heavy hooves against the worn pathway a fanfare to carry him home. His smile widened. He sat straighter. And if the panorama before him blurred a little, the Master of Etinsmere hardly minded.

Nothing changed from one side of the pass to the other. The rocks remained the same dull granite, and the sun shone no brighter, yet it seemed to his bleary eyes that every tiny thing glowed more before than behind him. He inhaled deeply, filling his lungs with pure Narnian air, and expelled it again in another great, gusty hoot of raw joy.

Tempest felt it, lengthening his mighty stride unbidden to thunder down the narrow trail until they were swallowed up by enveloping woodland, Drinian bent forward against his gleaming neck to evade the lower boughs. “Thank you, my friend,” he murmured, slowing to contemplate his unfamiliar surroundings for the first time. “Now: how the devil does one reach Greenglade from here?”

“Follow the south-east path until you reach a three-pronged fork, young master; then take the leftward to the edge of the woods. You’d be a stranger to these parts, I reckon?”

Coming from nowhere the voice made him start, almost as surprised as his mount. Tempest reared abruptly, neighing his irritation loudly enough to make the forest ring. By the time he had the stallion (and his own racing heart) under a semblance of control, Drinian had managed to identify the interruption’s source.

It was a large hare, almost twice the size of its Archenlandish brethren, that stood with head cocked and nose a-twitch between the spreading roots of an enormous chestnut tree at the farther side of the dappled glade. Drinian offered it a distracted smile. 

“Thank you,” he wheezed, gentling Tempest’s outrage with a pat while the other animal regarded them with a very human fascination. “Oh! Forgive my friend here – he’s an Archenlander.”

“Got an intelligent look to him, for a dumb beast,” the Hare observed, hopping closer. “And takes a strong hand on the bridle, I imagine! You’d be a northerner yourself, I reckon? My dam was an Etinsmere hare: I’d know the accent anywhere!”

“Do you have kin in those parts still?” Holding Tempest back to allow his new friend to match their pace, Drinian recalled his uncle’s words with sardonic satisfaction. Initial shock aside, there was nothing so very odd in being addressed by a furred mammal to a man familiar with the clashing voices of a galleon’s lower deck. “I knew every glade in those woods as a boy.”

“And shall again my Lord, no doubt.” His whiskers twirling, the Hare actually winked. “I was but a leveret then o’ course, but the murder of the Lord Tirian – beg pardon! – was the talk of every hedge and meadow. The bruit was that his widow and heir were fled across the border from her brother’s house: and for a novelty I see it told truth! You’ll be calling on the Lord Ninian on your way home, my Lord Drinian?”

“Aye.” Even the title, carried since birth, acquired a new meaning spoken by this civil creature. “And you have me at a disadvantage, Sir! You know my name. May I ask yours?”

“Camillo, my Lord.” The droop of his ears, Drinian gathered, was the closest Camillo could come to a human bow, and he responded in kind. “You’ll find the Lord Ninian in residence I fancy, though he’s called often to the King at Cair Paravel. Right on the edge of your territory, that is. Even we Beasts believed it a myth before.”

“It was a ruin when I last saw it!” Drinian burst out. Camillo’s ears quivered. “My mother and I escaped by boat down the coast,” he explained hastily. “And being perched atop that island…”

“Restored by the Lion's breath.” Dropping his voice to a reverent whisper, the Hare fixed him with a bright brown eye, assessing the human’s reaction. Drinian dipped his head.

“A fitter palace for a king of all Narnians than the old Telmarine residence, I daresay,” he volunteered. “Ah! This is the fork I’m to take for Greenglade?”

“Straight on to the edge of the woods. You’ll see the manor down in the valley from there. Bid you good-day, my Lord.”

“Good-day and thank you, Messire Camillo.” Uncertain of the etiquette of conversing with a Beast, Drinian added the courtesy on instinct. Camillo’s long ears fluttered in pleased acceptance before he bounded away.

Shaking his head, Drinian steered Tempest along the narrow lanes criss-crossing rolling meadows toward the crenellated keep of Greenglade’s manor, relaxed enough now to soak in the sunshine and the tranquillity of his surroundings. Not two months ago this had been a kingdom at war, yet on a soft late summer’s morning, with the crops ripening and flowers bright as jewels dancing beneath trimmed hedgerows, it was impossible to conceive of a place more at peace.

“A fair morning you’ve chosen for a ride, young master!”

This time the hail caused no confusion to man or beast. Tempest paused his leisurely amble before Drinian’s hand could twitch on the reins, his gaze drawn immediately down to a troop of sizeable Hedgehogs browsing in the long grass at the edge of the path. “A very fine morning,” he replied cheerfully, dipping his dark head in answer to the smaller pair’s waving paws. A family, he gathered, the mother as irked by the exuberance of her progeny as ever a Mistress of Etinsmere had been. “This path will take me to Greenglade, I believe?”

“Ah, you’ll be visiting the Lord Ninian then.”

“He often goes riding in the morning!” squeaked one of the youngsters excitedly. “We see him sometimes!”

“Always a kindly word, even to the little ones,” his mother added admiringly. “But if he should be from home, you’ll find my lady his mother in residence, sir.”

“The Lady Linetia is well?” His heart skipped a little, although Nin’s silvery, soft-spoken mother had been an intimidating presence to a young boy. It had never occurred to him, absurd though the thought seemed now, that any of his parents’ generation might have survived the usurper’s reign. 

The two smaller Hedgehogs tittered nervously. “M’Lady seldom leaves the manor, but folk say she does well enough,” their father assured him, giving them both a very stern look. “The Lord Ninian is very devoted to her.”

_Or very afraid of her!_

The voice in his head, Drinian discovered, was that of the resentful eight-year-old scolded for sliding down a wooden banister at top speed, as if the last ten years had fallen away. “I’ll be sure to pay my respects carefully,” he murmured, giving himself a very visible shake. The two youngsters poked paws into mouths, stifling very human giggles. Their parents exchanged the self-same look he had witnessed between his own time without number.

The new Narnia, he was seeing more clearly every minute, was much more like the old than Aunt Katharina would ever believe.

And the generosity of its Beasts to the heirs of their persecutors, he knew for a certainty by the time he was engulfed by the shadow of Greenglade’s high defensive wall, was far beyond anything Man could have mustered.

From the Hawk swooping from its hunt to call a greeting; to the large, inquisitive Red Squirrel that scampered through the branches of the last copse, barely finishing one sentence before starting out on the next, all questions, exclamations and high spirits. Drinian had not encountered a human creature since crossing into Narnia, yet every mile brought some new demonstration of animal civility.

The contrast with the narrowed suspicious stares and the gruffly hostile “Who comes?” as he passed under Ninian’s gatehouse, could hardly have been more disheartening.

“Is the Lord Ninian at home?” he enquired, the crook of a finger sufficient to bring one of the slouching retainers running to catch Tempest’s bridle. The eldest of them strode forward, ostentatiously fingering his sword hilt. 

With a composure that belied the irritation boiling his blood, Drinian swung down from the saddle, dipping his chin to meet the other’s threatening stare directly. For a moment the man hesitated. Then, gaze slithering sideways, he jerked a nod.

“Lagroz, inform m’Lord he’s a visitor come!”

“Thank you.” Lips pressed tight Drinian surveyed the gaggle, his bristling displeasure softening at the sight of a large, ruddy-faced fellow eyeing Tempest’s gleaming bulk with palpable awe. “If you’d be so kind as to find fodder and water for my friend here…” he suggested, offering the rein. The young man positively sprang to receive it.

“Glad to, milord! Never seen such a fellow before, he’s a right beauty!”

The stallion brayed. Drinian laughed. “His name is Tempest, and I daresay he agrees with you,” he said mildly, conscious of a small relaxation in the stance of his initial adversary and the murmur of relief that ran around the yard. Old iron hinges squealed somewhere to his left, a heavy door creaking its protest against being dragged inward. Digging his heel into the scattered straw that dusted the cobbles, Drinian turned abruptly to face the sound.

The corn-haired figure in the doorway matched him for height, but where Drinian’s shoulders had been broadened by years aboard ship, Ninian Greenglade’s remained narrow, his loose limbs as delicate as Prince Corin’s had lately been. Pale blue eyes peered myopically beneath bushy yellow brows, pushed up by the furrowing of a peaches-and-cream forehead. “May I be of service, Sir?”

Foolish as it was, Drinian felt his heart lurch. “Has it been so long, Nin?” he asked sadly, dragging his reluctant mouth into the form of a fragile smile. The lord of the manor’s hands spasmed. 

His mouth worked once. Twice. He leaned heavily against the doorjamb. Blinked, and tried again.

“ _Drinian?_ ” Barely a croak, but enough to snap the cold, coiling chains around two sets of ankles. Ungainly in their haste, the cousins cannoned across the hushed yard into each other’s arms, spinning blindly in a fervent embrace. “By the Conqueror’s – I mean, by the Lion’s Mane! Can it _truly_ be?”

“It can.” Those spindly arms held an unlooked-for strength to crush him so hard into a narrow, pigeon’s chest, but though every breath might be squashed from his lungs, Drinian would not have had the grip slacken for all the riches of Calormen. He returned it with interest, feeling his shudders meet their echo in the other body. 

Men began to shuffle and murmur, uncomfortable in the presence of so much unrestrained emotion. He heard none of it. Enveloped in his kinsman’s arms, recognised and welcomed by one of his own human kind, whole flights of arrows might have bounced unnoticed off the exultant shield of his happiness. “After so long!” Ninian marvelled, burrowing into Drinian’s broader torso with his nose. “We thought… Mamma will be so relieved! When there was no sign of you…”

“I only received word yesterday.” By unspoken agreement they stepped back to arms’ length, one surveying the other with starry eyes. “By the Lion, Nin! What you must have suffered, and in no small part for our sake!”

Ninian dismissed the implication with a head-shake that sent spikes of hair in all directions. “Father preferred the axe in public view to the secret fate of too many friends,” he said, a wobbly finger lifting to swipe a single teardrop from the peak of the newcomer’s cheekbone. “And he went to his grave satisfied the House of Greenglade had conquered the usurper’s slanders at every turn! My aunt…”

A look gave answer. “I’m sorry,” Ninian breathed, wringing his hand hard enough to burn. “I – if it gives you comfort, not a man living believed Miraz’s tarradiddle against her. _Everyone_ loved Aunt Elizabetha.”

“She deserved no less.” Every time the pain swept back, the loneliness he had lived since losing her. Not even Narnia, Drinian discovered, could mend that wound. “I hear Aunt Linetia…”

“Thriving,” Ninian agreed fervently. “And as blunt in her speaking as an Etinsmere in this changed world! Lagroz, Purlian, see my cousin’s charger cared for. I’ll lead you to Cair Paravel myself, Drinian, but you must take refreshment here first. His Majesty will be wild with joy to see you! He asks every time we meet if we’ve had word…”

“He’s well?” _His Majesty._ Caspian, the King.

It was, Drinian reflected, meekly following his host indoors and through a warren of corridors toward the central stair, as if the words had substance now. As if hearing them spoken in a Narnian accent made real what in an Archenlandish one had been a foolish dream. Ninian nodded vigorously.

“Well, and acclaimed by the whole realm – aye, even those men that were doubtful of a boy leading an army of beasts and demons,” he affirmed, just the faintest hesitation betraying his own early scepticism. “You’ll find him much changed, Drinian – though not quite so changed as he’ll find you! Con – Lion bless me, man! You’ve the chest of a centaur! When did _that_ occur?”

“There are centaurs too?” Why that surprised him, Drinian could not fathom. Ninian grimaced.

“Terrifying creatures: even the King’s in awe,” he confided, rapping firmly on a highly-polished door. “Mamma! We’ve a guest long looked-for! May we come in?”


	67. Sixty-Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which friends are finally reunited, and the Lord of Etinsmere's chosen profession causes a stir at the Court of King Caspian X

“I _am_ sorry about Mother,” Ninian apologised for the eighth time in an hour, steering his bright chestnut stallion north-east through sunlit glades that brimmed with strange new life. A faun, his bared chest swirled with russet curls, made a bow as he stepped aside, leaving cloven hoofprints clear in the springy turf. Two dwarves, one copper the other jet, called civil greetings (although the darker one, Drinian noticed, bit his lip and frowned as they were returned). And everywhere, there were the animals.

More Squirrels, as effusive as the first he had met; a skipping assortment of dark-furred Mice on hind legs, chirruping and chattering on their way. A glossy Blackbird preening on an old tree stump; two noisy Magpies. All of them bigger than the dumb creatures he remembered from boyhood, and all as articulate, as assured, as any Telmarine Drinian had ever seen. 

“All of this—” Ninian’s arm wavered through an aimless sweep. “’Tis too much, she says, to contemplate. Given the choice again, perhaps she’d take her chance with the Lion’s magic doorway.”

Head on one side, Drinian considered his merry, confident young cousin. “Would you?” he asked.

“Aslan, no!” The name came easily he noted: no quick correction from the old epithet this time. “Abandon Narnia and Caspian? Half his schemes are quite addled I daresay, but they’re noble! We’ve a world to create of our own, Drinian, and what could be more thrilling than that?”

“Very little, I imagine.” Caspian had been a dreamer from the nursery, and it bolstered confidence seldom in need of support to discover that, at least, unchanged. “The others? Lund; Mallica Passarid; the Glasswaters…”

“Mostly well and happy, though there’s only one Glasswater in Narnia now.” Though his features were refined by his dam’s inheritance, Ninian was wholly Arlian Greenglade’s son when he glowered: although by the creases at the corners of his mouth Drinian guessed that happened rarely enough. “Silvana wed a man of the usurper’s party, three months before Beruna. Chose to go to wherever it might be with him in defeat. Good riddance, so says my Lady Daniela! The shame of the marriage was more than their poor mother could bear.”

“The rest are loyal?”

Ninian’s head almost wagged off his shoulders. “Entirely! We’re all restored to our full honours, and made welcome at his court. The King’s taken especial interest in _your_ lands, for some reason! You – ahem! – your old nurse, Irina…”

“He’s released her?” His grip on the rein tightened hard enough to crack his knuckles. Ninian chortled.

“On the very first day, never fret! Provided her with a cottage close to Etinsmere and a pension the match of his own old nurse’s, and thick as thieves they are, those two! If there’s a conspiracy to be hatched in Narnia nowadays, I fancy those two old dames would be in the middle of it!”

It would be aimed elsewhere than the kingdom’s heart and head Drinian knew, recalling many a secret treat being passed his way or Caspian’s by two clucking affectionate old hens. “He’s as soft of heart as he ever was, then?” 

“Aye, but the head’s shrewd enough, if he could only have a little _confidence_.” A year his sovereign’s senior, Ninian _tsked_ like a greybeard in council. “Always had a winning manner as Prince Caspian, and he has it still, but a touch of his father’s bullishness wouldn’t go amiss.”

“That same blind self-certainty that allowed a vindictive serpent to slither to the crown?” Drinian challenged, surprised by the sudden veering of their path eastward. “I never knew there was a road to the coast here!”

“The Dwarves used it. You’ll like them, I think. Not so much inclined to faint at the sight o’ the waves as your own kind!”

“You do look a touch _set_ around the jaw, Nin.” Effortlessly resuming the role his year’s seniority had given in childhood, Drinian guided Tempest past his cousin, inhaling a cleansing lungful of brine-tinged air the moment he passed the treeline. “Glorious!” he added to himself, squinting against the silver brilliance of sun against wave. 

“So the King says.” Doubt in every syllable, Ninian hugged the landward side of the path, keeping Tempest’s powerful hindquarter between himself and the shingle beach. “There’s been murmuring against his residing at the old castle. Talk you know, that he’s in thrall to the strange beasts that made him king…”

“That dared raise their paws when his own kind cowered? Small blame to him!”

“Perhaps.” Clear blue eyes met impossibly dark for a moment, then dropped away. “But – well, Caspian is younger than his years. How could he not be, when he never set foot beyond the old palace without the usurper’s guard for ten years? How can he know who – or what – to trust?”

“Instinct, like every other man?” Drinian ground his teeth, feeling the bubbling resentment rise toxic in his blood. “Enough, Nin! I’ve seen evil in Man I doubt any Beast can match, and tell me: what harm have these creatures done you to equal that inflicted by your own kind?”

“Caspian will have an ally in Etinsmere as his father did.” Ninian laid a conciliatory hand on his arm. “And look! As we round this headland you’ll see it – Cair Paravel.”

“Restored by the Lion’s breath,” Drinian quoted a few minutes later, gazing in awe at the gracious structure, its pointed turrets all topped with the banner of the Lion himself that fluttered in a true sailor’s breeze. “Not quite the poetic fancy I thought, Messire Camillo!”

“Oh, you’ve met Camillo!” Previous scepticism forgotten, Ninian clapped his big hands with glee. “ _Quite_ a creature! One of the King’s earliest adherents, you know - and not inclined to let us forget it! His mother…”

“An Etinsmere hare. Yes, so he said.” Still admiring the flowing lines and gleaming pale stone of the royal residence, Drinian allowed himself a long, low laugh. “And that even _he_ once believed Cair Paravel a legend comforted me more that I care to admit! A fitter palace than the old fortress, I’d say.”

“And just as splendid within.” Impatient, the Lord of Greenglade spurred his mount forward, not glancing back to check his cousin followed. “ _Hurry_ , Drinian! The King’s face when he realises who I’ve brought to his door… oh, I cannot _wait_ to see it!”

*

The wide drawbridge connecting Cair Paravel’s island to the mainland was lowered, he noted, the gates thrown wide like Anvard’s in token of the monarch’s trust in his subjects. Figures moved across the courtyard: serene, unhurried beings of every species, purposeful and assured, who barely hesitated at the clatter of hooves on the entryway. “Hi! Trumpkin!” Ninian hollered genially, the hail halting a particularly sturdy Red Dwarf clad in brown leather and green velvet in his tracks. “Visitors for His Majesty!”

“Whistles and whirligigs! Lord Ninian!” Bright button eyes assessed the speaker and his companion in a second, full lips, prominent amid the copper furze of a thick beard, pulling into a genial grin. “Wasn’t expectin’ to see you up north today! The King’s in ‘is study with the old bletherer – with Doctor Cornelius, beg pardon! Good day to you too, stranger! That’s a very fine beast you have there.”

“Trumpkin was His Majesty’s first friend beyond the palace - together with the Badger of course,” Ninian explained hastily, hopping from the saddle in his cousin’s wake. “Is Trufflehunter at the castle? And Reepicheep? He’ll want you to meet them all, I’m sure. Trumpkin, this is…”

“Ninian, what ever are _you_ doing here?” The voice that fluted from the castle’s high arched main door was light and lively, still infused with the bubbling mischief of boyhood, even as it emerged from the lips of a golden-haired stripling whose well-moulded face had long since lost the roundness of childhood days. Slender and smiling, his sunny curls tumbling over a thin circlet of twisted gold wire, Caspian the Tenth, King of Narnia, Lord of Cair Paravel and Emperor of the Lone Islands, stepped from the shadow of the porch with all the assurance of his rank, only to stop with one foot hovering above the ground as his bright blue gaze rested on the taller, ebony-haired figure at his courtier’s back.

“Drinian?” he breathed, blinking once, then again. “I – in the Lion’s name it _is_ you, at _last!_ Where have you _been_ , we were worried half to death!”

“My liege.” Caspian, his old, dear friend gleamed out through the eyes of this graceful, laughing young monarch, and as he started forward with arms outstretched Drinian sank to his knees, carrying a thin hand adorned with a single large ruby to his mouth, still disbelieving even with the touch of warm skin beneath his lips. “I learned just yesterday of Your Majesty’s triumph. Had I heard sooner, all the demons of Tashbaan could hardly have kept me away!”

“Drinian.” Caspian’s free hand came down onto his broad shoulder, as if the younger man too needed the final confirmation of touch. “Ninian, why do you stutter and stare, would you not know your cousin _anywhere?_ "

“As a matter of fact, Sire, he failed to recognise me,” Drinian drawled, shooting a sidelong grin to his embarrassed relation. Caspian cackled.

The sound turned the last few faces hitherto discreetly averted their way, even as it carried Drinian all the way back to his carefree infant days. He lifted his head. Met the young King’s eyes. 

And laughed. 

“Then my Lord of Greenglade is an utter lack-brain!” Caspian snorted, all but hauling the taller man to his feet before dragging him into a vehement embrace. “I never saw any human not bearing the name _Etinsmere_ with eyes so dark: aye, and that laugh’s as familiar as my own, even now! I have missed you, Drinian.”

“And I you – Sire.” The old name rose so easily, but with the courtliness his aunt would demand of him, Drinian forced it back. Long golden lashes fluttered. 

He had expected it, Drinian realised, a stuttering shock running through his chest. The title, in place of his name, completely nonplussed Narnia’s otherwise assured young King. 

He recovered himself with a poise the infant Caspian would never have managed, stepping back with a faint smile to survey his long-lost friend. “We’re both much changed, I daresay,” he murmured, recalled to the presence of a rapt audience by the theatrical clearing of a gruff throat. “But Ninian’s still half-witted that he didn’t know you at once! Come inside, come and meet everyone! Where have you _been_ all these weeks, don’t you _know_ we hoped every day to see you come home?”

“I came ashore at Barwell yesterday, Your Majesty.” The more he used the titles, Drinian discovered, the more natural they became. “Heard of your victory from an old shipmate, and rode as direct as I dared for home. I’ve letters from Anvard in my baggage – King Nain commanded especially that I make his goodwill known…”

“Oh, _bother_ my uncle, I must know about _you!_ ” All but dancing with glee, Caspian guided him into a high and airy entrance chamber, its ceiling gilded with a dazzling Lion mural and shimmering with tapestries on every wall. “Forgive me! I should introduce people as we go, but I’m so much in a daze I can scarce think rightly! Trumpkin – Trumpkin, this is the Lord Drinian of Etinsmere, the boon companion I’ve spoken of so often.”

“Think I’d rightly guessed that, thankin’ Your Majesty all the same.” Shrewd black eyes twinkled above the bushy mass of foxy beard as the sturdy Red Dwarf thrust a tough little hand his way. Drinian shook it warmly. “Not at all took aback by this new Narnia then, m’Lord?” he enquired, and if Caspian flinched from the bluntness, Drinian did not.

“It has its proper King,” he said simply. “For that alone I could love it. And I’ve encountered naught but civility since I crossed the border.”

“Glad am I to ‘ear it, m’Lord.” He was, Drinian gathered, being assessed quite as intently as he was assessing this bullish little man, and by Trumpkin’s grin he assumed he passed muster. “You’ll not be stopping then, m’Lord Ninian?”

“Having delivered my cousin, I ought to return to Greenglade: if Your Majesty will excuse me, of course.”

“Of course, yes, of course! My – ahem! - my compliments to my lady your mother,” Caspian agreed distractedly. “She still terrifies me,” he added under his breath as they passed through an airy anteroom into a magnificent alabaster hall. Drinian grinned.

“Not so much as she does Nin, I daresay,” he returned, pausing to take in a Throne Room thrice the size of Anvard’s, with four grand velvet-upholstered chairs still crowning the dais where once the Ancient Sovereigns had received their court. Turning, he caught his breath, captivated by the vista of the glittering Eastern Ocean through full-length windows directly opposite. “By the Lion’s Mane! How _dark_ the old palace was compared with this!”

Caspian’s head twitched. “I never heard one of our stock use the ancient phrases so easily,” he marvelled. “Trufflehunter! Did you hear? My Lord Drinian knows the language of Old Narnia like a native born! Drinian, this is the Badger who, with Trumpkin, gave me shelter the night I fled my uncle’s keeping.”

“And to both do I owe a debt of thanks.” The badger’s broad snout twitched what he assumed to be a demurral even as a heavy paw was offered to be shaken. And only when he accepted it without pause did Drinian realise how closely his reaction was analysed.

“It was our privilege to be of service, my Lord,” Trufflehunter wheezed, gripping his hand between both paws for a moment. “But please, tell me – do they take the Lion’s name in Archenland still? We were told you fled beyond the mountains to exile when your father – forgive me!”

“My uncle swore by the Lion as my father did the Conqueror, Sir Badger, but until these past months he doubted the Great Lion’s true existence as much as any Narnian.” The paws were surprisingly soft, their grasp, despite the fiercely-hooked claws, as gentle as the creature’s warm gaze. Drinian liked him instantly.

“Few Beasts held the faith as deep as Trufflehunter m’Lord, and us Dwarves were as bad as any man,” Trumpkin muttered from the King’s side, flushing a shade of puce that clashed appallingly with his bright hair. “Cornelius! Come hobble over, you ‘alf-crippled old blighter! This here’s the man who saved the King’s life, m’Lord – Doctor Cornelius.”

“I did my duty, naught more: and an honour it is to see my Lord of Etinsmere returned home.” Surprisingly sprightly in his sweeping black gown, eyes bright beneath a ruffled mop of snowy hair, Caspian’s old tutor bent the knee, only to be drawn gently back to his proper height by the newcomer’s hand. “His Majesty has looked every day for your coming, my Lord."

“Yes, where ever _were_ you, Drinian?” Caspian demanded indignantly. “It’s _ages_ since the Battle of Beruna: and you missed my coronation, too!”

“At the date of the battle I was three days’ out from Redhaven, Sire.” To think he had been as carefree as a Galleon Gull while his oldest friend fought for his crown – his very life – shook Drinian to the core. “Had I known… we made landfall at Barwell before first light yesterday…”

Cornelius and the Badger, he noticed, shared a very strange look. “You are a sailor, my Lord?” Trufflehunter snuffled as the tutor and the Dwarf began to shuffle in obvious discomfort. 

“Of _course_ ,” breathed the King, wide eyes aglow as he resumed his grip of the other man’s hands and squeezed hard. “Yes of course, you _would_ be!”

“Eight years with the Archenlandish fleet,” Drinian confirmed, frowning at the palpable air of unease that had descended upon the little knot of royal advisers. “Lately I took the schooner _Lady Carolina_ with letters of condolence from King Nain to the Count o’ Brenn: then had to return to Anvard with the Count’s reply and to seek His Majesty’s blessing…”

“You would seek the approval of a foreign monarch before returning to serve your own?” Cornelius enquired primly, folding his hands. Drinian arched an inky brow, deliberately relaxing his from their clench.

“Would the service of a man that abandoned his post without the assent of that king who protected and promoted him over ten years be worth having, Doctor?” he asked, low and dangerous. “King Nain gave an orphaned exile shelter, and a position of trust. What manner of ingrate would repay with desertion?”

“Not one to be welcomed into Narnia’s service,” the old tutor admitted with a tolerant smile. “And King Nain is held to be an excellent man.”

“None better,” Drinian affirmed. “I _do_ have those letters from His Majesty and your cousins, Sire…”

“Later, Drinian, later.” This was, he acknowledged, unexpected: this air of careless authority, so hard to reconcile with the timid boy he had known. “I _must_ show you all over Cair Paravel: and you’ll stay our guest tonight? Trumpkin, send word to Etinsmere immediately, we must advise the household to stand ready for their master’s coming tomorrow! Ellena has the house in readiness Drinian, and - oh! Forgive me!”

“My mother survived not two years of exile Sire.” He had expected the question although Caspian, barely toddling at the time of his own dam’s death, had not until that instant thought to ask. “Her heart was broken in Narnia. Miraz killed her no less surely than he did Papa and Kathi.”

“I _am_ sorry.” _Still sentimental then_ , he thought, watching tears brighten the King’s sky-coloured eyes. “The Lady Elizabetha was the kindest of ladies! You’ll allow that I have the news conveyed to your household?”

“I should be grateful to be spared giving it myself.” At a nod from the King, Trumpkin was away as fast as his short legs could carry him, already barking orders to all and sundry in the entrance hall. “Ninian told me of your kindness to Irina…”

“The least I could do,” Caspian promised, equally earnest. “Now, you’ll prefer a room in a seaward tower, I suppose? You always slept the better for salt on your tongue, and I doubt very much that’s changed! The northern stands a little higher, and has a glorious view of the coast, too. Trufflehunter…”

“I’ll have the east-facing chamber at the turret made ready, Your Majesty.” Paw wagging in the direction of a faun in the gold-embroidered scarlet tabard of the royal household, Trufflhunter ambled away. With a deep bow to be divided between both men, Cornelius followed. “Dinner in your private apartments tonight, Sire?”

Caspian nodded crisply. “Excellent. Now _do_ let me show you over the castle, Drinian! You see the four thrones of course: and only think! This truly _is_ the very place the Four Sovereigns reigned from, just as in Nurse’s stories! Who would have believed when we whispered as children that it would be real? And so close to your own lands!”

“Looks a sight sturdier than when I last saw it, C – Sire.” Blushing (and doubtful his sea-tan would hide the fact) Drinian corrected the automatic slip instantly. Staggered by the enormity of what he revealed, Caspian failed even to notice it.

“Drinian! You _knew_ it was here!” he howled, the echo of his outrage resounding like the chimes of a distant bell around the vast room. “How could you not _tell_ me?”

“I discovered it that last summer: and when I let slip a word of it in my father’s presence I was threatened with a punishment to make the lash a pleasure.” Both hands raised in surrender, Drinian stepped back and let the force of boyish indignation wash over him, as welcome as an ocean wave after months ashore. “Imagine it! Had Mamma ever found out I ranged so far into _The Black Woods_ , I should have been locked in my nursery with the windows barred for the rest of my days!”

“Aye, no doubt!” Chortling, his friend grabbed a hand and began to tug, quite ineffectually, on it. “By the Lion, you’ve the strength of an ox!” he howled. “What have you been _doing_ , to grow so much?”

“Sailing, most likely.” By allowing his muscles to slacken, Drinian could permit his exuberant master to propel him along, through the grand throne room and into a smaller, cosier chamber beyond where a pair of large wing chairs stood on either side of an empty fireplace. “All right, _all right!_ No need to _pull_ , I’ll happily come wherever Your Majesty wishes to take me! But it was a ruin, Ca – Sire! I saw it quite clearly on the crown of the hill, and the walls were half fallen down!”

“Aslan restored it.” No less awed than Camillo, Caspian barely breathed the fabled name. “The true heart of Narnia, he said, where the greatest of her rightful sovereigns have reigned. And now I – how am I ever to be _worthy_ of it, Drinian?”

“By doing your best, my liege.” The wail tugged at his heart, and there and then Drinian swore a silent pledge to stand at this innocent’s shoulder, his ally and support to the last breath in his body. “The Four Sovereigns themselves could have done no more.”

“So they did say.” With a rueful smile Caspian shooed him on through another door, into a wide passageway and up a flight of narrow, curving stairs. “And what mistakes I make will be honest ones. Come, come and see the room we’ll set aside for you! I’m so glad you are home, Drinian.”

“As am I, Sire.” One hand curled around the shoulder of his boyhood friend, Drinian gazed down into the familiar blue eyes and smiled, feeling all the pieces that connected this stripling sovereign to the playmate of his youth slide into place. “And there’ll be salt in the air through this window, you say?”

“Oh, I promise you all the sea air you could wish for, my Lord!” Laughter bubbled irrepressibly onto Caspian’s tongue, redoubling in the face of his companion’s obvious confusion. “Dear, _dear_ Drinian! You and I have _so_ much we need to talk about!


	68. Epilogue - Narnia's Captain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They have a decade's news to catch up on, but there’s one particular subject Caspian can hardly wait to raise…

The evening had long since drawn in. As he rested his booted feet on the hearth, an empty goblet dangling from his hand, Drinian was glad of the blazing fire that filled the grate in the King’s cosy private parlour on the first floor of the Great Seaward Tower. A small window remained open, carrying the faint tang of brine to his lips, and the wine flagon, almost untouched, sat on a low table between their comfortable armchairs.

Everything, Drinian noted idly, seemed comfortable here. Even the silence hanging between them after an uproariously talkative dinner held an ease to belie the decade spent apart. Cair Paravel, for all its strangeness, felt more of a home than he had known since boyhood: the alien creatures who patrolled its halls, from Leopard guard to Faun usher and a boisterous Dwarf councillor, more his people than King Nain and his watchful human assembly had ever been. 

Caspian, he realised, was studying him intently over the rim of his wineglass. Waiting, no doubt, for answer to his latest astonishing declaration on this most extraordinary of days. “Small wonder Trufflehunter looked askance when I confessed to being a sailor, Sire,” he said nonchalantly. “Knowing Your Majesty already had this – this madcap absurd adventure in mind!”

“This noble quest that has the blessing of the Lion himself, my Lord,” Caspian countered, serious tone at odds with the sparkle in his eyes. He set down his glass and leaned forward, his gaze suddenly as piercing – and as powerful – as that of the lost lords’ old master himself. “Think of it, Drinian! Sailing seas unknown in search of those last few brave souls that might have taken our fathers’ part… Imagine the adventure!”

“Imagine the sea serpents, the hurricanes, the krakens and the endless flat calms more likely!” Drinian shot back, dropping his glass and mimicking the King’s alert pose. “Why! There’s not so much as a sloop to be found fit for sea in the kingdom you tell me: barely a man beyond this room that’s ever gone farther than half a league off-shore! The realm’s been wracked by war, and I’ve seen for myself – begging the Lady Linetia’s pardon – that not all our kind are as forbearing of this new Narnia as the Beasts they abused for so long deserve. Mind, I did see one Dwarf that looked askance, despite the proper civilities! You’ve a lifetime’s business restoring Narnia, and yet…”

“And yet the very notion of it quickens your blood as it does my own!”

Every objection, raised and unspoken, dissolved from Drinian’s tongue. “Aye,” he said softly, lifting his eyes to the window and the unbounded wildness of the ocean beyond. “I’m a sailor Casp – my liege. To raise up a great ship from nothing and steer her beyond the farthest horizon… what greater adventure could I dream of?”

“Then you _will_ help me?”

“In this and all else in my power, Sire.”

The King worried at his bottom lip for several moments. “I was never a title to you when we were small,” he said, and for the first time all day Drinian heard the tremulous little boy of the old Telmarine palace in his master’s adult voice. “Not when we were alone! Can you not… 

“Hang it! There’s not a soul in all Narnia dares speak my name now, Drinian. Can I not at least be _Caspian_ again to you?”

“Your Majesty was not my liege lord then.” Instinct brought the objection to his lips, although familiarity with the requester robbed it of the vehemence Drinian knew it should contain. Caspian snorted.

“My father was the Lord Tirian’s, and we both know when _they_ thought themselves alone he would use the sacred name,” he pointed out, peevish. Drinian considered for a moment, head on one side.

Then he stood, drawing himself to his full impressive height to tower over the golden youth who rose with him. Smoothly he dropped to his knees, once more carrying the hand graced by the ancient coronation ring to his mouth.

“Where the sovereign commands, the subject must obey – Caspian,” he said solemnly, breaking into a great bellow of laughter at that sovereign’s comprehending squeal. “But only when we’re alone! Trufflehunter’s claws look sharp enough to strip the hide from any subject he deems _impertinent_ : and I’d not care to chance Sir Trumpkin’s displeasure either!”

“Trumpkin likes you already, and he’ll approve all the more when he hears your objections to my _addle-brained intention to go galivantin’ before the realm’s even half secure_!” With a strength born of pure exultation Caspian heaved his burlier friend upright, almost dancing him around the charming parlour. Drinian threw back his head and laughed again, for the sheer joy of it.

“And when he discovers I’ll support it every step o’ the way all the same?” he challenged. The King’s slim shoulders circled through a schoolboy’s shrug.

“By then, my Lord, ‘twill be too late to prevent us!” he exclaimed. “Now, we’ll need a ship - and a crew! I have my captain, but he can hardly sail a royal vessel alone...”

_Captain_. Of course.

Was that not what he was always to be, even more than the Lord of Etinsmere and the courtly companion of his King? Captain Drinian, his seamanship and his sword at the service of his sovereign, smiled fondly at his oldest friend’s enthusiasm, feeling its echo resonate in his own blood. 

“A galleon,” he said decidedly. “That’s what we should have for such a purpose, Caspian! There are probably plans in my father’s study still – his shipwright, Master Mortain, brought them the week before Miraz struck - but if you’ve paper and a pen to hand, I suppose I might sketch her out for you now…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, after almost as long as it took for Drinian to return from exile, I've completed my take on his story. I'm actually sad it's over! To anyone who managed to stick with me to the end - thank you, and I hope it was worth your time.
> 
> There'll be a one-shot sequel posted in due course, too. I'm missing the characters I've been playing with for so long already :-)


End file.
